Themes Of Unity In The Grapes

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by the end of the story their family becomes one with other families who are weathering the same plight of starvation and senseless violence. In The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck emphasizes the power of groups over the individual’s power to survive poverty and violence through character evolution, plot and the use of figurative and philosophical language.
Tom Joad begins the novel with self-seeking aims, but with the ex-preacher Jim Casy as a mentor, he evolves into an idealistic group leader. Tom first meets Jim on his way home from jail. There begins a lasting friendship with the verbose preacher, who is going through a belief makeover and steadily moving toward the Emersonian oversoul including all people in a general spirit of human love and kinship. Tom is steadily angered more and more with his family’s plight, but even into the beginning of the family’s journey, he still has individualistic thoughts that consume his ideas. When Jim is trying to get Tom to ...

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He says, “But I know now a fella ain’t no good alone,” and “Two are better than one, because… if they fall, the one will lif’ his fellow, but woe to him that is alone when he falleth, for he hath not another to help him up” (570). Peter Lisca, an extensive critic of Steinbeck’s work, explains “…in is last meeting with his mother, in which he asserts his spiritual unity with all men, it is evident that he has moved from material and personal resentment to ethical indignation, from particulars to principles” (Lisca 98). Tom clearly changes his feelings and life goals from selfish to self-less.
The power of unity is ...

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