Graduate Program

English

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Semester of Degree Completion

2007

Thesis Director

Michael Loudon

Thesis Committee Member

Dr. Searle

Thesis Committee Member

Dr. Boswell

Abstract

When the merciless Dust Bowl sweeps through Oklahoma in The Grapes of Wrath, the major questions of what can be achieved by thinking and how can ordinary men overcome these critical circumstances pervade the entire novel. This thesis focuses on how Tom Joad, the protagonist in this novel, grows in his philosophical quest, based mainly on Steinbeck's assertion that "Need is the stimulus to concept, concept to action."

Although Tom Joad is portrayed as a cynical, convicted killer who responds to stimuli or from impulse at first, he undergoes his journey both literally and metaphorically from Oklahoma to the promised land of California with the migrants, thus he reveals his philosophical transformation, inspired by the former preacher Jim Casy. While Tom experiences the death of his grandparents and sees his family broken apart on this journey, he also assumes authority in and takes responsibility for the family. Tom realizes further that the migrant workers' working conditions and unfair wages are horrendous under unchecked capitalist greed. Sharing their common hardships and difficulties, he learns to embrace other families as his own and to cooperate with migrant workers for the sake of the group's needs, signifying his spiritual growth from "I" to "We" and the potential of mass movements in labor organization. Tom dreams of a democracy that is governed by ordinary people. Serving as a peacekeeper in the Weedpatch Camp, Tom gradually defines, specifies and participates in his ideal ofthe world.

Eventually, Tom is so moved by Casy's arrest in place ofhim and Casy's murder that he kills a second time, but he does so to protect Casy rather than in self-defense as he had earlier in the novel. Seeking refuge in his flight, Tom meditates in a cave implying his rebirth as a hero of Emerson's Oversoul, defined in Casy's phrase as "all men got one big soul ever' body's a part of." Tom's fully committed philosophical quest continues his transformation, by suggestion, beyond the novel's pages and to its ultimate victory in the voice of the people.

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