Tom on his own

Another Joad has shown the importance of family. After Tom had killed that one dude he was hit on the face and injured kind of badly. He is aware of the fact that it will draw unwanted attention from people that would probably hurt him more. Aware of this, he goes back and tells the family that he will not be staying with them just so they do not have to deal with any of the repercussions of what he did. This is quite a noble thing to do. It takes a lot of courage to separate yourself from the ones that you love. It is easier knowing that what you are doing is for their safety and good, but it still would be quite upsetting to have to do. Tom truly is willing to make a sacrifice for his family. They sneak food to the place where he is hiding. This is also a very awesome act of kindness from the Joad family. They have all seemed to keep their heads straight even during all of the things that are going on around them. Another thing you have to think about is Tom being alone. With all of the bad surrounding the people in the story it would be extremely difficult to deal with by yourself. When you are with your family or friends, you at least have people to confide in and tell you troubles to. With the sacrifice he made, Tom is no longer able to do this. It is sad because it seems that the Joad family is falling apart. I believe that Granma and Ma Joad were the ones that said that the family needed to stick together. Now there have been numerous deaths in the family and some of the members of the family have left to live on their own. Even after all of this it seems like the Joad family is still able to stay as positive as possible during this very rough time for everyone.