The character I am going to be analyzing is Tom Joad. In the story he is pretty much the main character/ protagonist. From the second chapter he has been the main focus throughout the entire story. He was first introduced in the story as a kind of mysterious/ creepy hitchhiker that was a hanging around a semi-trucker's truck. As the story goes on you learn that he is a convict who just got out of prison for killing a man. He killed the man for "good reasons" though, as the book tells it. He is traveling back to his family home on the farm to live with them. He goes there to find they are gone. He learns that they had to move to California for a job and a home because they got theirs taken away. Tom only has word of ear to help him get to his family. When he finally does he becomes the glue that holds them together. He is the one who takes a lot of risks in the story for his family. Tom was the one that led them into a good life in California. Tom is also the one who protected them. If there was any fight or conflict he was their winning it for his family. His family gained an even deeper love for him and more respect for him as a person as well. He has a very gun-hoe attitude about everything. Even if it's something that might be dangerous, if he hasn't tried it, it isn't dangerous yet. "It don't take no nerve to do somepin when there ain't nothin' else you can do." (Steinbeck, John. pg 221) Tom said this when someone told them that it was dangerous to cross the river. Because of Tom's go get em' attitude this was how he responded. He isn't afraid to take chances but at the same time he is very wise and careful about the decisions he does make. Especially when it comes to the ones he loves.
Steinbeck, John, and Robert J. DeMott. The Grapes of Wrath. New York: Penguin, 2006. Print.
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