The Wayward Bus

Content Warning: This section of the guide contains references to domestic abuse, sexualization of racial “otherness,” sexual assault, self-harm, and depression.

“To these young men opportunity beckoned constantly, drawing them ever southward toward Los Angeles and, of course, Hollywood, where, eventually, all the adolescents in the world will be congregated.”

Steinbeck characterizes the adolescents who work at Rebel Corners as transient, evoking the waywardness identified in the title of the novel. Rebel Corners is an isolated setting that can keep people stuck, but it is also a place that is at a crossroads, which implies that Rebel Corners is merely a stop on the way toward a more exciting future.

“In a world that was not easy for Alice to bear or to understand, flies were the final and malicious burden laid upon her. She hated them with a cruel hatred, and the death of a fly by swatter, or slowly smothered in the goo of fly paper, gave her a flushed pleasure.”

Alice desires control in a world that feels chaotic to her. The flies symbolize her lack of control of the world around her and are suggestive of rot and decay. Alice’s desire to live without flies is a projection of her internal feelings of instability regarding the lack of control she feels over her life and relationships.

“Sometimes, wiping the damp cloth back and forth on the counter, her dream-widened eyes centered on the screen door, her pale eyes flexed and then closed for a moment. Then you could know that in that secret garden in her head, Gable had just entered the restaurant, had gasped when he saw her, and had stood there, his lips slightly parted and in his eyes the recognition that this was his woman. And around him the flies came in and out with impunity.”

This quote characterizes Norma as dreamy and prone to fantasy due to a desire to escape her reality. Clark Gable is a symbol of love and happiness onto which she can project these desires. The flies symbolize the reality she is trying to escape from.