Reading Response 1 -The Grapes of Wrath-

The “Grapes of Wrath,” by John Steinbeck, tells of the Joads, who have lost their home and land to banks in need of land for cultivation. The family was forced onto the road, and from there set their sights on California, where there was rumored to be tons of work. Even though they suffer hardships and losses along the road, they don't lose hope. Eventually they reach the great state, but run into a new problem: the people. The Californians aren’t willing to pay the “Okies,” a term with a negative meaning describing migrants from Oklahoma, because they don’t want them in their state, or on their land.  And when there is work, there’s almost no payout for the workers because the powerful figures don’t want these new people to succeed or get paid, because if the new people are paid well they’ll stay. The rich and powerful people are afraid that if the migrants stay, the state will eventually be filled with poor and uneducated people.  Tom Joad, one of the younger family members, but one of the most influential by the end, undergoes some of the most dramatic changes. These changes are caused by his actions and those of others, such as Jim Casy, who had been a preacher but changed his ways to focus more on his philosophies.

In the beginning of the story, Tom Joad is viewed as a selfish, in it only for himself character who had been convicted of manslaughter during a drunken fight. He leaves prison in search of his home, and his family. On the way he meets Jim Casy, an ex-preacher who now takes on the role as philosopher and companion. At the time, Tom seems full of himself and narcissistic. He had been given new clothes from the prison that were of high quality, and instead of it feeling as if he was honored to be granted expensive clothes, he treated them as if they were just any old thing and creased the hat, ruining it, and scuffed and dirtied the expensive shoes in the dust.
                As the story progresses, Tom begins to change in the presence of Casy. His philosophies of selflessness and doing things for the good of a group instead of just yourself begin to rub off on him. Tom starts to change for the better of himself and his family. He starts to run errands and carry out tasks for everyone, and he starts to lose his slightly narcissistic thoughts.  When their car breaks down, Tom and Casy offer to stay behind with it while the rest went forward, but ma wouldn’t have it, so everyone stayed while Tom and Casy went to a nearby scrapyard to get the parts.

Throughout the story, Tom proves himself time after time. He doesn’t just do stuff for his family and the group, but for communities, camps, and travelers they meet along the way. When the Joads are staying at a Government camp, Tom volunteers as someone to guard against sheriffs who attempt to close the place down, since they can only enter in the time of a fight. So the sheriffs sent in people to cause fights so that they could come in and close the camp. Also, when the Joads are staying at a peach ranch with a strike going on outside the fences, Tom sneaks out and, while in support of the men leading the rally, attempts to moderate the anger between the Sheriffs and working men. At this time he reunites with Casy, who had previously been arrested after taking the blame for the Joad's attack of a sheriff. During the time when Tom had been trying to moderate, Casy had been killed by one of the sheriffs with a billy club. Tom had then retaliated, unintentionally killing the sheriff. But this time, unlike earlier, Tom had not killed in a drunken rage, but accidentally because he had lost a friend.

Against the backdrop of the Great Depression and the plight of the Okies, John Steinbeck illustrates how, even throughout all the Joads have been through, they’re still able to keep their dignity. In the modern era, young adults all over the world go through the phase that Tom is during The Grapes of Wrath: the transition from a narrow perspective of the world and thinking about only oneself, to seeing the world as a community and every person someone meets as equal to the next and oneself. Overall, this is what Steinbeck wants us to know.