This is a story about a man named Tom Joad, a ex-convict recently released from prison
for killing a man with a shovel while being stabbed.
While hitchhiking to his father’s cotton farm in Oklahoma, Tom meets Casy, his childhood
preacher who has since left the church.
When they arrive at the farm, they see that it is abandoned and the land has been worked
over by a tractor.
A man named Muley, a local man who knew Tom when he was younger, approaches and explains
that most of the families in the area have been forced out by the banks and that Tom’s
family has gone to live with his Uncle John.
Tom and Casy walk to Uncle John’s farm and Tom is reunited with his father, mother, grandparents,
and siblings.
Over breakfast, Tom’s father explains that they were planning on moving to California.
The family packs in the truck, which includes Grandpa, Grandma, Casy, Uncle John, Connie,
Rose of Sharon, Al, Noah, Ruthie, Winfield, and Tom.
They begin their journey on the road to California on Highway 66.
As the family continues on their journey, they stop on the side of the road to rest
and meet the Wilson’s, a husband and wife whose car has stopped working.
Grandpa Joad feels sick and dies of a stroke.
As they exit Oklahoma and enter Texas, the car breaks down and needs a new engine part.
The rest of the family goes ahead in the truck and rests at a stop, while Tom and his brother,
Al, look for a service station.
They find a car parts dealer and the one-eyed man sells them the part they need for cheap.
They return to the vehicle and fix it, eventually catching up to the family at the stop.
However, at the stop, a man returning from California tells them that workers arriving
in California are being taken advantage of because of their desperation.
Still, the Joad and Wilson families continue on their journey.
The family drives through Arizona and finally arrives in California, but they still must
cross the desert.
At a local encampment, Tom’s brother, Noah, decides to stay and the Wilson’s urge the
Joad’s to continue without them because Mrs. Wilson is near death.
With Grandma Joad nearly dead, the family packs up and makes the final push into California.
However, Grandma Joad never sees the orchards and city lights of California, as she dies
in the back of the truck.
After burying Grandma Joad, the family settles in an encampment called Hooverville.
The collection of tents is full of poor workers and their families, all of which are struggling
to eat.
Tom meets a man named Floyd who tells him that there is no work in the area and describes
how the workers are being taken advantage of because of so few jobs.
After Al helps Floyd fix his car, Floyd tells Tom that there is work two hundred miles to
the north.
However, Tom is apprehensive about moving north since the work isn’t guaranteed.
A man from the south seeking workers appears in the camp with a deputy sheriff.
Floyd demands to see his license since the man seems shady.
When the man refuses, the deputy tries to arrest Floyd.
Floyd runs away and Tom trips the deputy.
As the deputy fires his gun at Floyd, Casy knocks out the deputy and turns himself in
when more deputies arrive.
Tom decides that Hooverville is not safe and so they pack up their belongings.
After Tom’s brother-in-law, Connie, runs away and Uncle John gets drunk, the family
heads north.
They are forced to turn around by a pack of angry people, but Tom waits them out as he
watches as they burn Hooverville.
Angry, Tom turns the truck toward a government camp called Weedpatch in the south that is
rumored to have nice amenities and no sheriffs.
The family arrives at Weedpatch, a little self-governing community with their own showers
and laws.
A recent vacancy allows the Joads to move in.
They are welcomed to the camp and the rules are explained to them.
Tom finds a job digging a ditch, while the rest of the family becomes accustomed to the
camp.
The camp prepares for their weekly Saturday evening dance, but there is a rumor that a
fight will be started, which will allow the sheriffs to shut down the camp.
As visitors from outside the camp enter for the dance, a group of men, including Tom,
try to screen them to see who might cause trouble.
The band plays as the people dance and just as a fight is about to escalate, the men stop
it.
Eventually, the Joads can’t find work and must move out of Weedpatch.
The Joads find work at Hooper Ranch and are escorted past a line of picketers.
After picking peaches for a day, they barely have enough money for dinner.
That night Tom investigates the picket line and reunites with Casy, who is leading the
picket.
Casy tells Tom that he’s learned about the strength of a union and how they keep lowering
the wages.
However, a group of men attack them, leaving Casy dead.
In response, Tom kills one of the men, but gets hit in the face.
Tom returns home and can’t return to work because of the injuries to his face.
The wages for work are lowered just as Casy predicted and as suspicions grow about the
killing at the picket line, the Joads decide to leave the camp.
On the road, they see a job sign for cotton pickers.
After finding residence in a boxcar, the family picks cotton and collects a fair amount of
money to buy food.
However, the cotton is running low and soon everyone will be looking for work.
Ruthie gets into a fight with another girl and accidentally says that Tom recently killed
a man.
Ma gets worried and gives Tom money to run away.
Tom accepts the money and leaves, saying that he’s going to try to continue the work that
Casy started - trying to setup unions and organize people.
It begins to rain, indicating that field work has stopped.
Al meets a girl named Agnes and they want to get married.
Ma doesn’t want Al to leave because he’s the only one who can drive the truck.
Rose of Sharon, Tom’s sister, begins feeling sick and starts to give birth during a rainstorm.
As the nearby river begins to flood, Pa and some of the men begin digging a bank to stop
the rising water.
However, the water continues to rise and eventually floods their truck.
Rose of Sharon gives birth, but the baby is born dead.
Uncle John is told to bury it, but he lets it float down stream.
The rainwater rises and begins to flood their boxcar.
After trying to protect themselves from the rising waters, the Joads decide to leave and
Al stays behind with Agnes.
The family walks in the countryside and sees a barn in the distance.
In the barn, they meet a dying father and his son.
In the end, Rose of Sharon breastfeeds the man so that he can recover from his illness.