Chapters 27-30: The Ghost of Tom Joad

Tom knows Ma is sad so he tries to make her feel better by telling her that he will always be there. He comes up with the idea from something that Casy had told him before, he wants to ensure his mom that she does not have to worry because whether he is alive or dead he will always be around her. He shows her that he will be in everything she sees or does when he says, “I'll be ever'where - whereever you look.” Tom has gotten to the point where he just wants things to get better so he is going to try to take matters into his own hands and wants to go out on his own. He thinks that if people want things to get better that they need to do it themselves. He also thinks that all the lower class people should band together and demand better for themselves. He is going to become a leader, and try to start a movement to better people’s situations thru finishing Casy’s work. Clearly the upper class has it way easier and their lives have barely changed at all since the Dust Bowl began. I think that they have been greedy and selfish, I do not think that they care about what the lower class is going threw and they are not trying to help. They could of helped the economy a lot by actually paying their workers decent wages. The lower class people have had their worlds turned upside down. What I think Tom is trying to do is to help them and make their lives much easier than it is, with just doing what Casy did.

Chapters 21-26: What Jail Taught a Preacher

When Casy is in jail, he does not just sit there depressed and not do anything, he tries to learn and speak to people about problems that they are facing. He picks up on things by watching what is going on in his surroundings. When Casy was telling Tom the epiphany, the moral of the story was that if you start demanding things from the authority they will give it to you but you have to be as a team or a large group. If one person stands up and starts demanding things it would not work, because the larger the mass the more likely the authority will give in. It might be out of fear, or just simply because they know that they have the resources to do so and they were not before because they were being greedy. This had never occurred to Casy because he had never seen it first hand, Tom does not understand because he has never seen it. I think that Steinbeck put this part in the book because he thought that if all the people during the Dust Bowl and the Depression actually stood up together and did not just look out for themselves and tried working as one that they would have gotten out of the rut a lot faster, even though it might have been inconvenient at times. Because if they would have worked together the economy would have gotten better and money would have started circulating again. You see this point a lot in this book also with the I to We.

Chapters 17-20: Life in Hooverville

When The Joad’s arrive in California it is not at all what they expected it to be, it is not a land of flowing jobs and endless ways of opportunity. Although they are all shocked, they quickly adapt and start trying to make an income and to take care of each other. Ma, who is the leader and glue who keeps the family together is trying her best to put food on the table for her family. When the whole families wages only add up to a small amount Ma still needs to feed the family. Although she does not just get as much food as she can and then just feed her family, she tries to give as much as she can to the starving children also in the Hooverville. That again shows the I to We, Ma could have just fed her family and not cared about anyone but them but she does not. Ma is a caretaker, she takes care of the random hungry children that she might not even know because she knows that it is possible for her to do so even though it might not seem easy. When Ma says “We're the people that live. They ain't gonna wipe us out. Why, we're the people - we go on.”, you see that she is determined to take care of her family and not let anyone get in her way whether it is the security guards, police men, or government. She is very selfless and tries her best to do the right thing and take care of people who are in need, even if it means sacrificing herself.

Chapters 14-16: "This is the beginning - from 'I' to 'we.'"

In these chapters you see the transition from I to We, normally most people just worry about themselves and do not care about the people who they themselves do not care about such as strangers. But as this book continues you start to see how people that the Joads meet help them, these many kind strangers could be selfish and not give each other food or do kind little gestures. But instead they help each other out because they are all in the same boat and want the same goal, the goal of making money and finding a job. When I read chapter fourteen I found out that the northern states did not like the idea of the western states moving to northern states because they had heard that they were thieves, and not good people. You start to see characters act that way towards westerners in later chapters as well. In chapter fifteen a waitress in a diner is being selfish when she sees a father and his two sons in need of food; she brushes them off and does not give them food. Until her co-worker Al tells her to give them some bread, Al is an example of how strangers helped each other. Al did not have to give the man and his sons’ food at all, but he did anyways because he knew what struggles people were going threw. When the Wilson’s car breaks down they feel guilty for causing so much trouble for the Joads, they feel like they are bringing them down so Wilson says, “Seems like its my fault. This here goddamn wreck’s give me trouble right along. You folks been nice to us. Now you jus’ pack up an’ get along. Me an’ Sairy’ll stay, an’ figger some way. We don’t aim to put you folks out none.” But instead of the Joads saying okay sounds good they say no we are going to stick together and fix the car, so you start to see how the I becomes We when the Joads stop caring as much about just their family but when they start caring for the Wilson’s as if they are part of their family as well.