Tom Joad

Eleanor Hargrove
March 1, 2014
Miss Person
A.P. English 11

Essay Choice #4: Tom’s Education
When we are first introduced to Tom Joad, he is an enigma. He presents many contrasts, and the reader is not sure what to make of him. Though only recently released from the Oklahoma state penitentiary for murder, Tom is honest about his past. He freely admits to his reason for imprisonment, and goes so far as to say that he would kill again, if it came to it. Despite his flaws, Tom nonetheless wins the trust of the reader and Jim Casey. Casey, the fallen preacher, becomes close to Tom and begins to influence his beliefs. Casey has come to believe in transcendentalist ideals, citing that “…There ain't no sin and there ain't no virtue. There's just stuff people do.” (Steinbeck 32). Throughout The Grapes of Wrath, Tom progresses from a character focused on himself to one whose fight becomes one for the world at large.
As the book progresses, it is no longer Tom’s “self” that drives him. When we first meet him, Tom is a character staunchly focused on himself. His four years in MacAlester prison have shaped him. However, almost immediately we begin to see him progress beyond individualism. He immediately seeks out his family, and they become his focus and drive. Though his family’s make-up has changed, and changes, throughout the novel with the death of his grandparents, the abandonment by Noah and Connie, and the acceptance of Casey and the Wilsons, Tom remains driven for his family’s protection. He fixes cars, trades for food, and attempts to get them into California, the “promised land.” In his travels, however, Tom becomes disillusioned with the idea of the happily-ever-after that awaits them in California. Prison, in some ways, was his shelter and only now is he exposed to the corruption of the outside world.
Perhaps this transition is caused by Casey. Already, Casey has transcendentalist ideals, with an education in process before the book’s start. Tom soon comes to see the world like Casey- in a way far different from the masses. Influenced by his friend who goes to jail to protect the “we” (Joad family unit) Tom comes to see the largest “we-“humanity as a whole, the impoverished and weak. When Casey returns as the uproarious leader of a proposed union for the migrant workers, Tom is wary of joining him, but does anyway, for he has begun to see the truth un the protection of the masses.
It is Casey, with his martyrdom to his ideals, who firmly shapes the fate of Tom. Tom kills again in revenge-and though his initial reaction is to hide himself- what he witnessed set in stone the beliefs he had begun to develop. When the time comes for him to leave, he is ready. As he says to his Ma, “I'll be ever'where—wherever you look. Wherever they's a fight so hungry people can eat, I'll be there… I'll be in the way guys yell when they're mad an'—I'll be in the way kids laugh when they're hungry and they know supper's ready. An' when our folk eat the stuff they raise an' live in the houses they build—why, I'll be there.” (Steinbeck 419). His education is complete and his story ended, for Tom has fully realized the truth. Man has a duty to help one another, and he intends to spread that spirit until they do.
In this symbolic way, typical of Steinbeck, Tom becomes a sort of John the Baptist to Casey’s Christ. Tom intends to spread the word and belief system of Casey. He is the disciple to Casey. Even though the threat of a death similar to Casey’s surely weighs on Tom, he pays it little mind. He intends to spread Casey’s Word (as the disciples did) despite the odds against him. If he dies, he dies- so long as the Word is spread
How does Tom’s “education” feed into the book as a whole? The Grapes of Wrath, though more than a simple story of one family in the dust bowl, has a main character. Tom. Tom represents in the reader the adaptability of man. It is he who, in the Joad family, first makes the leap from “I” to “we,” although he had the furthest to go. Tom’s story, his education, draws the reader in. His education is ours, and Steinbeck’s plea to move from a focus on ourselves to a focus on the rest (the “I” to “We” first mentioned Chapter 14, page 156) is taken away by the reader and-hopefully-realized.