Full Summary
Chapter One: Steinbeck begins the novel with a description of the dust bowl climate of Oklahoma. The dust was so thick that men and women had to remain in their houses, and when they had to leave they tied handkerchiefs over their faces and wore goggles to protect their eyes. After the wind had stopped, an even blanket of dust covered the earth. The corn crop was ruined. Everybody wondered what they would do. The women and children knew that no misfortune was too great to bear if their men were whole, but the men had not yet figured out what to do.
Chapter Two: A man approaches a small diner where a large red transport truck is parked. The man is under thirty, with dark brown eyes and high cheekbones. He wore new clothes that don't quite fit. The truck driver exits from the diner and the man asks him for a ride, despite the "No Riders" sticker on the truck. The man claims that sometimes a guy will do a good thing even when a rich bastard makes him carry a sticker, and the driver, feeling trapped by the statement, lets the man have a ride. While driving, the truck driver asks questions, and the man finally gives his name, Tom Joad. The truck driver claims that guys do strange things when they drive trucks, such as make up poetry, because of the loneliness of the job. The truck driver claims that his experience driving has trained his memory and that he can remember everything about a person he passes. Realizing that the truck driver is pressing for information, Tom finally admits that he had just been released from McAlester prison for homicide. He had been sentenced to seven years and was released after only four, for good behavior.
Chapter Three: At the side of the roadside, a turtle crawled, dragging his shell over the grass. He came to the embankment at the road and, with great effort, climbed onto the road. As the turtle attempts to cross the road, it is nearby hit by a sedan. A truck swerves to hit the turtle, but its wheel only strikes the edge of its shell and spins it back off the highway. The turtle lays on its back, but finally pulls itself over.
Chapter Four: After getting out of the truck, Tom Joad begins walking home. He sees the turtle of the previous chapter and picks it up. He stops in the shade of a tree to rest and meets a man who sits there, singing "Jesus is My Savior." The man, Jim Casy, had a long, bony frame and sharp features. A former minister, he recognizes Tom immediately. He was a "Burning Busher" who used to "howl out the name of Jesus to glory," but he lost the calling because he has too many sinful ideas that seem sensible. Tom tells Casy that he took the turtle for his little brother, and he replies that nobody can keep a turtle, for they eventually just go off on their own. Casy claims that he doesn't know where he's going now, and Tom tells him to lead people, even if he doesn't know where to lead them. Casy tells Tom that part of the reason he quit preaching was that he too often succumbed to temptation, having sex with many of the girls he Њsaved.' Finally he realized that perhaps what he was doing wasn't a sin, and there isn't really sin or virtue there are simply things people do.
He realized he didn't Њknow Jesus,' he merely knew the stories of the Bible. Tom tells Casy why he was in jail: he was at a dance drunk, and got in a fight with a man. The man cut Tom with a knife, so he hit him over the head with a shovel. Tom tells him that he was treated relatively well in McAlester. He ate regularly, got clean clothes and bathed. He even tells about how someone broke his parole to go back. Tom tells how his father Њstole' their house. There was a family living there that moved away, so his father, uncle and grandfather cut the house in two and dragged part of it first, only to find that Wink Manley took the other half. They get to the boundary fence of their property, and Tom tells him that they didn't need a fence, but it gave Pa a feeling that their forty acres was forty acres. Tom and Casy get to the house: something has happened nobody is there.
Chapter Five: This chapter describes the coming of the bank representatives to evict the farmers. Some of the men were kind because they knew how cruel their job was, while some were angry because they hated to be cruel, and others were merely cold and hardened by their job. They are mostly pawns of a system that they can merely obey. The tenant system has become untenable for the banks, for one man on a tractor can take the place of a dozen families. The farmers raise the possibility of armed insurrection, but what would they fight against? They will be murderers if they stay, fighting against the wrong targets.
Steinbeck describes the arrival of the tractors. They crawled over the ground, cutting the earth like surgery and violating it like rape. The tractor driver does his job simply out of necessity: he has to feed his kids, even if it comes at the expense of dozens of families. Steinbeck dramatizes a conversation between a truck driver and an evicted tenant farmer. The farmer threatens to kill the driver, but even if he does so, he will not stop the bank. Another driver will come. Even if the farmer murders the president of the bank and board of directors, the bank is controlled by the East. There is no effective target which could prevent the evictions.
Chapter Six: Casy and Tom approached the Joad home. The house was mashed at one corner and appeared deserted. Casy says that it looks like the arm of the Lord had struck. Tom can tell that Ma isn't there, for she would have never left the gate unhooked. They only see one resident (the cat), but Tom wonders why the cat didn't go to find another family if his family had moved, or why the neighbors hadn't taken the rest of the belongings in the house. Muley Graves approaches, a short, lean old man with the truculent look of an ornery child. Muley tells Tom that his mother was worrying about him. His family was evicted, and had to move in with his Uncle John. They were forced to chop cotton to make enough money to go west. Casy suggests going west to pick grapes in California. Muley tells Tom and Casy that the loss of the farm broke up his family his wife and kids went off to California, while Muley chose to stay. He has been forced to eat wild game. He muses about how angry he was when he was told he had to get off the land. First he wanted to kill people, but then his family left and Muley was left alone and wandering. He realized that he is used to the place, even if he has to wander the land like a ghost. Tom tells them that he can't go to California, for it would mean breaking parole. According to Tom, prison has not changed him significantly. He thinks that if he saw Herb Turnbull, the man he killed, coming after him with a knife again, he would still hit him with the shovel. Tom tells them that there was a man in McAlester that read a great deal about prisons and told him that they started a long time ago and now cannot be stopped, despite the fact that they do not actually rehabilitate people. Muley tells them that they have to hide, for they are trespassing on the land. They have to hide in a cave for the night.
Chapter Seven: The car dealership owners look at their customers. They watch for weaknesses, such as a woman who wants an expensive car and can push her husband into buying one. They attempt to make the customers feel obliged. The proffts come from selling jalopies, not from new and dependable cars. There are no guarantees, hidden costs and obvious flaws.
Chapter Eight: Tom and Casy reach Uncle John's farm. They remark that Muley's lonely and covert lifestyle has obviously driven him insane. According to Tom, his Uncle John is equally crazy, and wasn't expected to live long, yet is older than his father. Still, he is tougher and meaner than even Grampa, hardened by losing his young wife years ago. They see Pa Joad fixing the truck. When he sees Tom, he assumes that he broke out of jail. They go in the house and see Ma Joad, a heavy woman thick with child-bearing and work. Her face was controlled and kindly. She worries that Tom went mad in prison. This chapter also introduces Grampa and Granma Joad. She is as tough as he is, once shooting her husband while she was speaking in tongues. Noah Joad, Tom's older brother, is a strange man, slow and withdrawn, with little pride and few urges. He may have been brain damaged at childbirth. The family has dinner, and Casy says grace. He talks about how Jesus went off into the wilderness alone, and how he did the same. Yet what Casy concluded was that mankind was holy. Pa tells Tom about Al, his sixteen-year old brother, who is concerned with little more than girls and cars. He hasn't been at home at night for a week. His sister Rosasharn has married Connie Rivers, and is several months pregnant. They have two hundred dollars for their journey.
Chapter Nine: This chapter describes the process of selling belongings. The items pile up in the yard, selling for ridiculously low prices. Whatever is not sold must be burned, even items of sentimental value that simply cannot be taken on the journey for lack of space.
Chapter Ten: Ma Joad tells Tom that she is concerned about going to California, worried that it won't turn out well, for the only information they have is from flyers they read. Casy asks to accompany them to California. He wants to work in the fields, where he can listen to people rather than preach to them. Tom says that preaching is a tone of voice and a style, being good to people when they don't respond to it. Pa and Uncle John return with the truck, and prepare to leave. The two children, twelve-year old Ruthie and ten-year old Winfield are there with their older sister, Rose of Sharon (Rosasharn) and her husband. They discuss how Tom can't leave the state because of his parole. They have a family conference that night and discuss a number of issues: they decide to allow Casy to go with them, since it's the only right thing for them to do. They continue with preparations, killing the pigs to have food to take with them. While Casy helps out Ma Joad with food preparation, he remarks to Tom that she looks tired, as if she is sick. Ma Joad looks through her belongings, going through old letters and clippings she had saved. She has to place them in the fire. Before they leave, Muley Graves stops to say goodbye. Noah tells him that he's going to die out in the field if he stays, but Muley accepts his fate. Grampa refuses to leave, so they decide to give him medicine that will knock him out and take him with them.
Chapter Eleven: The houses were left vacant. Only the tractor sheds of gleaming iron and silver were alive. Yet when the tractors are at rest the life goes out of them. The work is easy and efficient, so easy that the wonder goes out of the work and so efficient that the wonder goes out of the land and the working of it. In the tractor man there grows the contempt that comes to a stranger who has little understanding and no relation to the land. The abandoned houses slowly fall apart.
Chapter Twelve: Highway 66 is the main migrant road stretching from the Mississippi to Bakersfield, California. It is a road of flight for refugees from the dust and shrinking land. The people streamed out on 66, possibly breaking down in their undependable cars on the way. Yet the travelers face obstacles. California is a big state, but not big enough to support all of the workers who are coming. The border patrol can turn people back. The high wages that are promised may be false.
Chapter Thirteen: The Joads continue on their travels. Al remarks that they may have trouble getting over mountains in their car, which can barely support its weight. Grampa Joad wakes up and insists that he's not going with them. They stop at a gas station where the owner automatically assumes they are broke, and tells them that people often stop, begging for gas. The owner claims that fifty cars per day go west, but wonders what they expect when they reach their destination. He tells how one family traded their daughter's doll for some gas. Casy wonders what the nation is coming to, since people seem unable to make a decent living. Casy says that he used to use his energy to fight against the devil, believing that the devil was the enemy. However, now he believes that there's something worse. The Joad's dog wanders from the car and is run over in the road. They continue on their journey and begin to worry when they reach the state line. However, Tom reassures them that he is only in danger if he commits a crime. Otherwise, nobody will know that he has broken his parole by leaving the state. On their next stop for the night, the Joads meet the Wilsons, a family from Kansas that is going to California. Grampa complains of illness, and weeps. The family thinks that he may suffer a stroke. Granma tells Casy to pray for Grampa, even if he is no longer a preacher. Suddenly Grampa starts twitching and slumps. He dies. The Joads face a choice: they can pay fifty dollars for a proper burial for him or have him buried a pauper. They decide to bury Grampa themselves and leave a note so that people don't assume he was murdered. The Wilsons help them bury Grampa. They write a verse from scripture on the note on his grave. After burying Grampa, they have Casy say a few words. The reactions to the death are varied. Rose of Sharon comforts Granma, while Uncle John is curiously unmoved by the turn of events. Casy admits that he knew Grampa was dying, but didn't say anything because he couldn't have helped. He blames the separation from the land for Grampa's death. The Joads and the Sairy Wilson decide to help each other on the journey by spreading out the load between their two cars so that both families will make it to California.
Chapter Fourteen: The Western States are nervous about the impending changes, including the widening government, growing labor unity, and strikes. However, they do not realize that these are results of change and not causes of it. The cause is the hunger of the multitude. The danger that they face is that the people's problems have moved from "I" to "we."
Chapter Fifteen: This chapter begins with a description of the hamburger stands and diners on Route 66. The typical diner is run by a usually irritated woman who nevertheless becomes friendly when truck drivers consistent customers who can always pay enter. The more wealthy travelers drop names and buy vanity products. The owners of the diners complain about the migrating workers, who can't pay and often steal. A family comes in, wanting to buy a loaf of bread. The one owner, Mae, tells them that they're not a grocery store, but Al, the other, tells them to just sell the bread. Mae sells the family candy for reduced prices. Mae and Al wonder what such families will do once they reach California.
Chapter Sixteen: The Joads and the Wilsons continue on their travels. Rose of Sharon discusses with her mother what they will do when they reach California. She and Connie want to live in a town, where he can get a job in a store or a factory. He wants to study at home, possibly taking a radio correspondence course. There is a rattling in the Wilson's car, so Al is forced to pull over. There are problems with the motor. Sairy Wilson tells them that they should go on ahead without them, but Ma Joad refuses, telling them that they are like family now and they won't desert them. Tom says that he and Casy will stay with the truck if everyone goes on ahead. They'll fix the car and then move on. Only Ma objects. She refuses to go, for the only thing that they have left is each other and she will not break up the family even momentarily. When everyone else objects to her, she even picks up a jack handle and threatens them. Tom and Casy try to fix the car, and Casy remarks about how he has seen so many cars moving west, but no cars going east. Casy predicts that all of the movement and collection of people in California will change the country. The two of them stay with the car while the family goes ahead. Before they leave, Al tells Tom that Ma is worried that he will do something that might break his parole. Granma has been going crazy, yelling and talking to herself.
Al asks Tom about what he felt when he killed a man. Tom admits that prison has a tendency to drive a man insane. Tom and Al find a junkyard where they find a part to replace the broken con-rod in the Wilson's car. The one-eyed man working at the junkyard complains about his boss, and says that he might kill him. Tom tells off the one-eyed man for blaming all of his problems on his eye, and then criticizes Al for his constant worry that people will blame him for the car breaking down. Tom, Casy and Al rejoin the rest of the family at a campground not far away. To stay at the campground, the three would have to pay an additional charge, for they would be charged with vagrancy if they slept out in the open. Tom, Casy and Uncle John eventually decide to go on ahead and meet up with everyone else in the morning. A ragged man at the camp, when he hears that the Joads are going to pick oranges in California, laughs. The man, who is returning from California, tells how the handbills are a fraud. They ask for eight hundred people, but get several thousand people who want to work. This drives down wages. The proprietor of the campground suspects that the ragged man is trying to stir up trouble for labor.
Chapter Seventeen: A strange thing happened for the migrant laborers. During the day, as they traveled, the cars were separate and lonely, yet in the evening a strange thing happened: at the campgrounds where they stayed the twenty or so families became one. Their losses and their concerns became communal. The families were at first timid, but they gradually built small societies within the campgrounds, with codes of behavior and rights that must be observed. For transgressions, there were only two punishments: violence or ostracism. Leaders emerged, generally the wise elders. The various families found connections to one another