The article analyzes the environmental views of John Steinbeck as artistically embodied in the travelogue “Travels with Charley: In Search of America”. It traces the development of environmental issues in the author’s work, which makes it possible to speak of the sustained nature of his interest in the problems of interaction between humans and the environment. Particular attention is paid to how Steinbeck conceptualizes the connection between social processes and society’s attitude toward land, natural resources, and the landscape as a whole. To this end, the study employs comparative and descriptive methods, as well as techniques of motif analysis as a разновидность of the structural method. An analysis of Steinbeck’s texts shows that environmental issues in his work are closely connected with questions of social justice, economic development, and cultural identity. In his earlier works, the emphasis is placed on the dramatic consequences of environmental exploitation and the unequal distribution of resources, whereas in the travelogue “Travels with Charley: In Search of America” a more complex and analytical approach is reflected. The author not only notes the changes occurring in American society under the influence of scientific and technological development but also seeks to understand their impact on environmental consciousness. Thus, one can speak of the formation in Steinbeck’s later works of a coherent system o f environmental motifs reflecting the transformation of social values in the context of modernization and the growth of consumer culture. This makes it possible to regard Steinbeck’s prose as an important contribution to the development of environmental thought in the twentieth century. Ecology, ecological consciousness, microcosm and macrocosm, nature, civilization, progress, roots, organic whole, motif.