The Joad Family In John Steinbeck's The Grapes Of Wrath

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In The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck, the Joad family is forced by the bank to leave their farm in Oklahoma during the Great Depression and head West to California, along with thousands of others, in hopes of a brighter future. The bank is responsible for ordering numerous tractors to evict thousands of farmers off of their land, stripping them of their identity. The migrants form a shared hatred for the faceless bank that is uprooting their lives. Forced to leave their past behind, the Joad family begins their journey to California. Steinbeck centralizes the story around the theme of sin and repentance. Former preacher Jim Casey, gives up preaching because he felt that he had sinned. Casey cannot seem to forget about his past and …show more content…
Casey withdrew from preaching because he “got a lot of sinful idears” and he just “Ain't got the call no more” for preaching (42). Casey’s “sinful idears” drive him to question what the true meaning of sin is, so he goes into the wilderness to think. He emerges from the woods as a new person with a new perspective on spirituality. Even though Casey claims that he is not a preacher anymore, people continue to ask him to say a pray with which he responds, “I don’ know what to pray for or who to pray to” (137). Casey refuses to say the prayer because he does not want to revert back to his past of sin; he has lost spirituality altogether. Similarly to Casey, Uncle John sinned in his past and now drowns his sin with alcohol and small random acts of kindness. Uncle John is haunted by the death of his wife because he believes that her death was his fault. Tom explains, “Uncle John, he's always been a easy-goin' fella, an' he takes it hard. Takes it for a sin. For a long time he won't have nothin' to say to nobody. Just walks aroun' like he don't see nothin', and he prays some. Took 'im two years to come out of it, an' then he ain't the same” (134). Uncle John begins to fade into the background and never has “nothin’” to say to anyone anymore. He cannot “see nothin’” because his vision is blurred by his guilt. He walks around like a ghost because the guilt has consumed him and has …show more content…
They purge themselves of the past and focus on their future and their aspirations. When they submerge themselves in the water, all of their tribulations, such as Granpa’s death and the loss of their farm, will be left behind in order to focus on what is to come. The water also symbolizes a new start for the Joad family. Steinbeck writes, “He [Uncle John] cupped his hands full of water and rubbed his face...dusty water ran out of his hair and streaked his neck” (284). The “water” represents purity and holiness and when he washes himself, “dusty water” from the dust bowl at home runs down his body, symbolizing his past. The dust on the man’s body has travelled with him throughout his journey; it represents the memories. When the dust disappears, so do the memories. Additionally, Steinbeck writes, “Each man sat in the water and felt the tug of the current. The preacher let his arms and hands float on the surface. The bodies were white to the neck and wrists, and burned dark brown on hands and faces, with V's of brown at the collar bones. They scratched themselves with sand” (283). The men’s bodies were “white” from the neck to the wrist and then “brown” on their hands, faces, and collarbones. The brownness of their hands, faces, and collarbones represents impurity, possibly because those are the parts of their bodies that are exposed the most. Whereas, the area
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