Pa Joad was a very important character in the book. Not only is he the protagonists father, but he is the man the protagonist learned all his good traits from. Pa Joad was faced with many conflicts in the book that he dealt with admirably. At first he was faced with the unchangeable fact of bad weather. This amount of pure dead dry weather caused a terrible drought causing his crops to start to fail. This made him have many problems with money because he had nothing to sell. If he had nothing to sell, that meant he had no money to pay his bills. Without money, the banks were going to kick him out of their home. Knowing this he stayed as strong as possible and fought very hard to keep the land his grandfathers had worked on all their lives. As much as it killed him to lose it, he knew that for his family he had to be strong and come up with a plan. This shows the amount of leadership and strength Pa Joad had. When they were moving to California he was one of the strongest people of the entire group which says a lot about his character for what he had gone through. Although he does have strength, he does have his moments where he is completely defeated. At these points he relies on Ma Joad to help him. “We’re Joads. We don’t look up to nobody. Grampa’s grampa, he fit in the Revolution. We was farm people till the debt. And then—them people. They done somepin to us. Ever’ time they come seemed like they was a-whippin’ me—all of us. An’ in Needles, that police. He done somepin to me, made me feel mean. Made me feel ashamed. An’ now I ain’t ashamed. These folks is our folks—is our folks. An’ that manager, he come an’ set an’ drank coffee, an’ he says, ‘Mrs. Joad’ this, an’ ‘Mrs. Joad’ that—an’ ‘How you getting’ on, Mrs. Joad?’” (Steinbeck, John. pg) She stopped and sighed. “Why, I feel like people again.” were some word Ma Joad offered to help him.
Steinbeck, John, and Robert J. DeMott. The Grapes of Wrath. New York: Penguin, 2006. Print.
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