Rude Man Who Gives Directions

Character Analysis

This is a guy in upstate New York who (without being asked) gets into Steinbeck's parked vehicle to give him unsolicited directions. Apparently, the directions were terrible, and Steinbeck notes: "Well, he got me out of town by a route which, if I could have remembered it, let alone followed it, would have made the path into the Labyrinth at Knossos seem like a throughway" (2.3).