Tom Joad example essay topic

Released from an Oklahoma state prison after serving four years of a manslaughter conviction, Tom Joad makes his way back to his family's farm amid the desolation of the Dust Bowl. He meets Jim Casy, a former preacher who gave up his calling out of a belief that all life is holy, and that simply being among the people as an equal is a sacred endeavor. Jim accompanies Tom to his home; when they find it deserted, fronted by withered crops, they travel to Tom's Uncle John's house, where they find the Joads preparing for a long trip to California in search of work. Large California landowners have poster announcement for employment throughout western Oklahoma, and Ma and Pa Joad have decided to move their family their; evicted from their farm by the bank that owned it, they feel as though they have no choice.

The journey to California in a rickety used truck is long and arduous, and results in the deaths of both Tom's grandparents. Traveling along Highway 66, which is clogged with cars making the same trip to California for the same reasons, the Joads meet the Wilsons, a couple plagued with car trouble whom Ma Joad invites to travel with the family. S airy Wilson is sick with cancer, and, near the California border, is unable to continue on the journey. As the Joads near California, they hear ominous rumors of overcrowded camps and an overflowing labor market; one migrant tells Pa Joad that twenty thousand people show up for every eight hundred jobs, and that his own children starved to death in California. But the Joads press on, and eventually reach their destination. They move from camp to camp to squalid camp, looking in vain for work, struggling to find food, and struggling to hold the family together.

Tom's younger sister Rose of Sharon is pregnant and fearful that her child will be born deformed or even dead; eventually, her husband Connie abandons the family. The environment in California is hostile in the extreme: the camps are overcrowded and full of starving migrants, the locals are fearful and angry at the flood of newcomers, whom they derisively label "Oakes", prices are skyrocketing and work is almost impossible to find; when there is work, it never pays enough to keep food on the table. The large landowners do everything in their power to keep the migrants as poor and dependent as they can. Jim Casy is arrested in Tom's place as a result of an argument over whether the worker should organize into a union, which the landowners want to prevent at all costs. At last, the Joads find a hospitable camp run by the government, where they make many friends and find work picking fruit. Tom helps the central camp committee, and when the police attempt to stage a riot during a camp dance as a alleged reason to break up the camp, Tom assist the men in defusing the problem.

The Joads travel to another place in search of work, and Tom encounter Jim Casy, now released from prison and working to organize the migrants. Tom and Jim are discovered by the police, who kill Jim; Tom kills one of the policemen in anger, then escapes. The other Joads move to a cotton-picking job not far away, while Tom hides from the police at a nearby stream. One day Ruthie, the youngest daughter in the Joad family, reveals to a girl in the camp that her brother has killed two men and is hiding away nearby. Ma Joad seeks Tom out to warn him, and Tom declares that he has decided to dedicate his life to fulfilling Jim's task and organizing the migrant workers into a union. The other Joads continue to live in the boxcar; one day, sixteen-year-old Al becomes entangled to Agnes Wainwright, a young girl whose family shares the Joads' living space.

Their lives are complicated by a long, hard rain that floods the nearby area and threatens to wash the boxcar away. Rose of Sharon gives birth to a stillborn child; the other Joads decide that it is time to leave. Saying goodbye to Al, who is determined to stay with Agnes, Ma Joad leads her family to a dry barn not far away. Here, they find a young boy kneeling over his father, who is slowly starving to death.

He is unable to eat solid food, and need milk or soup to survive. Realizing that Rose of Sharon is now producing milk for her dead child, Ma Joad sends the others outside, and Rose of Sharon lies next to the man and guides his mouth over to her breast.