The Grapes of Wrath: Summary - Part III

Again starting where the last blog ended, the Joad family leaves the Hooverville and finds a much more suiting, government-run camp. This second camp is not as full as the others had been, and the family is even able to find some work. However, one day when Tom is working at a pipe-laying job, he learns about the police's intentions of staging a riot inside the camp because they have been wanting to shut down the facility. Luckily, by alerting the camp of the plan and organizing everyone, Tom is able to stop the plan and keep the camp alive. Still, without having canstant and steady work, the Joads have to move on, despite the pleasant atmosphere of the government camp. They are next employed to pick fruit, but they soon learn that the good wages are only an attempt to break a workers' strike. Tom runs into Jim Casy again after he has been released from prison, who he learns has been organizing workers; in his wake, however, Jim Casy has upset many of the wealthy landowners who are trying to keep the workers poor and confused and made many enemies among the landowners because of his uprising. Finally, the police hunt down Jom Casy and kill him in front of Tom; he does not take this lightly, of course, and so Tom kills a police officer in return. Tom goes into hiding, and the rest of the family moves into a boxcar on a cotton farm. One day, Ruthie, the youngest of the Joad daughters, accidentally reveals that her brother killed two men and is hiding nearby. Fearing for his safety, Ma finds Tom and sends him away, where he then continues Jim Casy's dream of organizing the migrant workers. The cotton season ends and so do the jobs, and word sweeps around the land that there will not be any more jobs available for another three months. Rain floods the land, and Rose of Sharon gives birth. Ma, desperate to protect her family moves the family to a dry barn not too far down the road. Once there, they find a young boy, kneeling over his starving father. The man has given all of his food to his son in hopes of keeping him alive, but now the man is suffering. Remembering that Rose of Sharon is now producing milk, Ma tells her to nurse the old man back to health, and the book is pretty much over from there.