A Sprawling Cast of Characters

The Grapes of Wrath tells the story of Joad family's search for a new life in California after being evicted from their farm in Oklahoma.  The family includes three generations (four if you include Rose of Sharon's unborn child) as well as seven siblings.  In addtion, the novel also includes other characters connected to the family such as Jim Casy and Muley Graves.  Furthermore, there are a whole host of characters that we meet on their journey, such as Ivy and Sairy Wilson, and some who we don't even know their names such as the truckdriver that Tom hitches a ride with, the one-eyed man who sells Al and Tom car parts or the ragged man they meet at a campsite who is going back to Oklahoma to starve.  

Do some of these characters represent a main theme or idea?  Do they represent "roads not taken" by the main characters or contrasts with the Joad family?  Do they all (or most) have something in common?  Do they fit into categories or types? Why this sprawling cast of characters?  

All That Lives Is Holy

Religion plays an outsized role in the lives of the Joads and their fellow migrants.  Yet, the closest thing to a preacher in the story, Jim Casy, is a preacher who has renounced his vocation and who voices controversial views that depart from orthodox Christainity.  Early in the novel he proclaims, "The hell with it! There ain't no sin and there ain't no virtue.  There's just stuff that people do"(23)  He later adds, "[M]aybe that's the Holy Sperit -- the human sperit--the whole shebang.  Maybe all men got one big soul ever'body's a part of"(24).  Later when he is pressed to give a eulogy over the grave of Grampa he says, "This here ol'man jus' lived a life an 'jus died out it . . . He was alive, an' that's what matters.  An' now he's dead, an' that don't matter"(144).  He goes on to quote a Blake poem that states that "all that lives is holy"(144). 

What is the significance of Casy, the preacher who no longer preaches?  What is it telling us about religion in a world that is seemingly suffering from a catastrophic plague almost Biblical in proprtion? What is the novel's take on religion and spirituality?

Turtles and Weasels and Dogs, Oh My

Animal imagery abounds in The Grapes of Wrath.  An early chapter describes a turtle's journey to cross a road only to be hit by a truck (Chapter 3).  Muley Graves describes himself as an animal when he claims, "I was mean like a wolf.  Now I'm mean like a weasel" (57).  In addition the family dog meets an untimely end on the first stop on their journey (130) . 

Choose at least one such image from the chapters we have read.  What is the symbolic value of the image?  What is it telling us about themes, characters or ideas in this novel?  What is the point of all this animal imagery?