Grapes of Wrath 6

The Joads suffer alot of tragedies during their trip to California in search of work, like the death of both grandparents and an unborn child. The characters do have kindness and make their share of sacrifices like how the Joads showed their kindness when they gave a dollar away to the Wilsons when they were going to stay behind even though the Joads didn’t have much money. However, there are a few examples in the book that are truly great examples of how humans care for one another.


The first example of a great sacrifice was when Casy took the blame for Tom when a contractor labels Floyd a “red” and the deputy arrests him on false charges. Floyd runs away while the deputy chases him and Tom trips the deputy and Casy knocked him out. When backup comes, Casy says “They’ll send Tom back to McAlester” (p363)   and insists to the officers that he was the one who knocked out the deputy . Casy sacrificed himself in order to save Tom from going to prison who is on parole and shouldn’t have left Oaklahoma in the first place.


Another example of a sacrifice in the novel was when the Joads had to decide if they could bring Casy with them. Eventually they let Casy join them on their trip. I think this is a great example of a sacrifice and kindness beacause the Joads were sacrificing room in the car which was already filled with twelve passenagers and also sacrificing food to feed Casy.


The last great example of a kindness that the Joads made was when the flood took over the their boxcar and Ma told everyone to go to higher ground where they find a barn. They find a boy who tells them that his father hasn’t eaten in six days and has given all the food to him.. The boy says “Made ‘im chew ‘er down. But he puked it all up, an’ then he was weaker. Got to have soup or milk. You folks got money to git milk?”(p618) Rose then tells everyone to leave and gives her milk to the starving man. This is a great example because Rose was saving a life, but in doing...