Tom Joad's Home

When the novel begins, Tom Joad, the protagonist of the story has just been released from the state prison in Oklahoma. He makes his way home to his family to find that the area has been deserted with everyone being “tractored” off the land. Most families, including Tom’s are headed to California in search of new work and new lives. Tom finds his family and they decide to take a huge risk by giving up the land they’ve been tethered to for generations. This uprooting of their family begins a long, slow change in identity for many family members as well as family dynamics and structure.
Before, the Joad family relied on a traditional family structure in which the men worked outside of the house and made the decisions while the women obediently did as they were told and tended to the house and raising of children. An example that shows how invested are they in these roles is how everyone continues to honor the grandfather as the head of the family despite the fact that he has outlived his ability to act as a sound leader, becoming just another person to feed and care for. Many will hold to a tradition family structure even in times of duress and pressure because it gives them comfort. Some families have a hard time being flexible and research has shown that allowing you and others room to change and adapt can be very healthy. (Price & Price, 2005)
As the Joads continue their journey westward in an attempt to find work in California, however, the family dynamic changes quite a bit. Pa becomes discouraged and begins to feel defeat by his growing failures. He eventually withdraws in his role as family leader and ends up being overwhelmed in a sort of identity crisis. The painful loss of personal identity is a common theme of human exis...

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... the world, but that one can gain “wholeness” only by devoting oneself to your fellow human beings. He matures under stress and commits to bettering the future for himself and his family. After seeing so much injustice, he finally realizes that “his” people are all people. He cannot stand working for his family’s well-being if it means taking work from another family. He ends up leaving his family to set out on a course of public action. With his rational, calm temperament, it’s no wonder he handles such inhumane treatment so well. I would speculate that he would become an effective political leader if there were to be a sequel to the story. Overall, this is a story that is completely focused on what it means to be a family, what humans need to survive, and the idea of human weakness in self-interest. Families are truly the bedrock of not only society, but humanity.