Role in The Novel
The Grapes Wrath narrates the story of Tom Joad and his family as they travel from Oklahoma to California in the midst of the Great Depression.
Steinbeck’s novel The Grapes of Wrath begins as Tom Joad returns from prison to his family's farm. His family is forced to leave the farm as a result of the economic turmoil caused by the Dust Bowl. Tom breaks his parole and chooses to help his family. Throughout the novel Tom defends a humanistic point of view. He is willing to break civil law or stand against broader economic mechanisms to follow more humane and universal principles of morality and justice.
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