Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory
Dad's truck is a huge, gleaming big rig that really packs a punch in this story. It has a very different meaning for each of the main characters—it's the coolest thing ever, a marriage-buster, or the ticket to happiness. Let's check it out.
Love It
Leigh's dad has always driven a truck, but he initially worked for a company and drove their trucks. He dreamed of going into business for himself and saved up every penny to buy a big, beautiful rig. We find out from Leigh right away that "the truck is why my parents got divorced" (11.3). You'd think Leigh would hate it, right?
You'd be wrong.
Leigh calls the truck "a thing of beauty" (11.3). It's the center of some really good memories of time spent with Dad (which he includes in his winning story). It's the truck and its haul that determines whether Dad will come to see Leigh or not. When Leigh rides with his dad in the truck, he learns a lot about the country around them and about different types of trucks and loads. All that info pays off when he writes his story; it's full of lots of details from his personal experience. Even Shmoop now knows the difference between a reefer and a gondola.
Leigh dreams that the truck could make him some friends, or at least get him noticed:
I guess I wouldn't seem so medium then, sitting up there in the cab in front of a forty-foot reefer. […] Then the truck would pull away from the curb with all the kids staring and wishing their Dads drove big trucks, too. (16.6)
Despite the problems in their relationship, Leigh looks up to his dad and admires his dad's job as a trucker. He wants to be just like him, riding so high in the rig that the other kids will envy him. An understandable wish from a boy who doesn't feel much noticed at all. To lonely and vulnerable Leigh, the truck means "big and powerful."
Leave It
Leigh is crazy about the truck. Mom? Not so much.
The thing is, before Leigh was born, Mom loved the freedom and excitement of riding in a truck with her husband. The truck is even part of why she fell in love with him: "He was big and handsome and nothing seemed to bother him, and the way he handled his rig—well, he seemed like a knight in shining armor" (39.13).
But things change when Leigh is born. Mom says she thinks Dad "fell in love" with his new truck.
To Leigh's mom, the truck and the long hours Dad spends in it away from home mean a pretty lonely life for her. It also means irresponsibility—hanging around truck stops and playing video games instead of being home and helping to raise Leigh. In some ways, Leigh's ideas of Dad and the truck become like Mom's as he starts to lose faith in his dad:
I still wanted him to pull up in front of the house in his big rig, but now I knew I couldn't count on it. (52.10)
That shiny truck is starting to lose some of its luster.
Live It
The truck is Dad's life. For Dad and Bandit, it means freedom.
"Bandit likes to ride. That's how we got him. He just jumped into Dad's cab at a truck stop in Nevada and sat there." (14.3)
Leigh asks Mom why his dad is in love with his truck if a trucker's life is so hard. Mom says:
"It's not really his truck he is in love with. He loves the feel of power when he is sitting high in his cab controlling a mighty machine. He loves the excitement of never knowing where his next trip will take him." (34.3)
It's not actually the physical truck Dad loves so much but what the truck represents: power, freedom, and excitement. Dad's just a ramblin' man.
For something that's just a hunk of metal, that truck sure does evoke very different reactions from these three.