Tom's personality

Tom has decided to work and support the efforts to organize the farmers. He had been planning on doing so but Ma Joad warning him that people may know of him being in hiding is what makes him fully go for it. He tells Ma Joad and she reminds him that Jim Casy died for supporting and trying to help the cause. Tom kind of jokes about this but I think he really does take it very seriously. It seems like his personality to laugh in the face of death and make jokes out of very serious matters. I think there are a lot of people in the world like this. He makes a joke that he will duck more quickly then Jim did, but I think he truly does know the risk of what he has decided to do. I think he also partially may want to make sure that Jim’s death was not in vain and for nothing. Of course the other reason for helping out is simply that it may drastically improve the situation of the entire migrant worker population. Later it is kind of happy because as Ma Joad is returning to the boxcar they are staying in she is stopped by a man that tells her that he needs workers for a large cotton field. Ma Joad spreads the word of this work. Having work is just such a good thing for everyone at this point. Most of the people are running out of money and are just barely getting by, so work is the best thing they could possible do at this point. There are so many workers the next day that the field is cleared in almost half a day. As the family returns to their boxcar it starts to rain. I am assuming that the rain is important because there has not really been any rain spoken of up to this point. We will have to see what comes next for the Joad family.