Car troubles

After a chapter that shows kindness and generosity, the story shifts back to misfortune. The Wilson’s car breaks down and Tom and Casy have to fix it. Ma Joad says they aren’t going to leave without them so everybody ends up staying back. This shows that Ma Joad does not want anyone to split up. Another instance she shows this is when the some of the family members are talking about opening their own store by themselves. Ma Joad is upset by this. I think a lot of this comes from the fact that she has just lost her husband that she was married to for so long. When you lose someone important to you, it seems that a lot of times you want to keep really close to the ones you have left. This is really a coping mechanism since people can’t stand the idea of losing everyone. This is similar to Uncle John with this wife dying. His coping mechanism was being extremely nice to everyone around him, but Ma Joad’s is becoming over attached to the other family members that she has left. Another depressing part of this chapter is a man working at a car shop telling Tom and Al that he went to California and had no luck. He said he lost his entire family and there was absolutely no work there for him. This seems really discouraging, but the preacher Casy insists that he and the Joad family will have a different experience there. I really think that this chapter moved the mood of the story back down a lot. The kindness of the waitress in the previous chapter was nice but all of the descriptions of being unsuccessful can offset that back to nothing. I think the man telling the story about his family dying really made an impact on the ones who heard it. Now they know what the repercussions could be for not being able to find work.