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2.1 The Story of The Grapes of Wrath
The novel is centered on the story of the Joad family, applying colors to the bitterness and suppression went through by migrant workers. The whole story is composed of three parts: the current situation in Oklahoma, the journey to California and their experiences in the Golden State.
It first presents the grim situations in the Dust Bowl Oklahoma where all the surrounding farms are devastated when Tom Joad is released from an Oklahoma prison. On his way to hometown, he meets Jim Casy who was a preacher deserting his brief totally. Tom and Casy are informed by his old neighbor Muley Graves of the information that most families including the Joads have been driven away and left for California to look for bread. Gathering together, they are determined to go to California as the final wish of making life back on track because they have seen the advertisements propagandizing fruit-picking work there.
During the trip to California, a series of misfortunes occur one after another. Grandpa Joad and Grandma Joad soon pass away; Noah, the oldest of the Joad family, abandons his family; Connie who is a real dreamer abandons his pregnant wife, Tom’s sister Sharon. The Joads adopt many hostile attitudes and eager migrants are overcrowding the shabby camp everywhere. Those migrants usually have conflicts with each other, which makes the local people detest them and are scared of them and then they call the migrants Okies. Jobs cannot be found and few wage cannot meet a meal of a family so that Tom and other people have a bitter argument whether a union should be organized by workers. Later Casy is arrested as he kills the sheriff. After the Joads are adopted by a government-run camp, the family make many friends and have a little work to do. However, a rebellion is being planed by the police who are eager to shut down these domestic installation in public. By the method of informing and arranging people in the camp, Tom heads off a danger. In spite of the pleasant and nice life in the government camp, the Joads are forced to leave due to not that much stable work. Although the family finds the job to pick fruits and earns abundant salary, they soon figure out the fact that employees make use of them to destroy a worker’s strike. Tom happens to meet Casy and learn that Casy has started organizing migrant workers after being discharged from prison, which results in many landowners turning away from him. Tom kills a sergeant when he wits that Casy is checked down everywhere and finally killed by the police. Then, Tom begin to evade capture all day long.
Meanwhile, the Joads moves to an abandoned carriage on a cotton farm. Ruthie, the youngest daughter of the Joads, discloses to another that her elder brother has killed people and is hiding in the near. Ma Joad finds Tom and sends him away for fear of Tom’s safety. Tom makes up his mind to accomplish Casy’s ambition to carry on organizing the migrant workers. Unfortunately, Sharon gives birth to a dead baby and Ma puts up a desperate fight to guide her family to a safe dry barn. There, Sharon nurses a dying man with her own milk.