Grapes of Wrath- Theme of Family

Throughout the book family was a constant. In the very beginning the Joad family was waiting for one of their sons, Tom Joad, to get out of prison and come home. Although he killed a man, they did not care. They could not wait for their son to come home because not matter what he does they always loved him. The quote "All we got is the family unbroke." (Steinbeck, John pg. 217) This quote is pretty much what the subtitle of the book could have been. After they lost their land and all their money, all they had was one another. Through this they became closer as a family unit. The slowly began learning more and more about one another and this helped them to become better and more sensitive to one another. Going through such hard times and seeing how hard it was on one another, they began to become more and more self sacrificing for one another. Adding to the family was good friends. The book showed how family doesn't always have to be by blood. It shows that sometimes the closest family you have does not technically have to be blood related to you. The people who love you, care for you, and would make sacrifices for you, is your real family. The book gives you an outlook on both of these concepts. Showing how your blood family should be of the utmost importance but even those who are blood but still love and care about you should also be of utmost importance. Tom Joad did everything for his ma, pa, and brothers and sisters, but he also did practically everything for those who weren't his blood family. We can learn many things from this book! We can learn that self sacrifices is always worth it for the ones you care about. Also you can learn that friends can be the best family members of all. We need to always remember that one thing no one can ever take away is our love for others, so we must use that as much as we can.