The Grapes of Wrath - Family

In The Grapes of Wrath family always comes first. In this story family basically means survival. Every member of the family has their own duty to help the whole family prosper. When the whole Joad family is getting along it make them stronger. When they are all helping each other it makes it easier for the Joad family to live. Each one of them has their own abilities others do not. Of course Al and Tom are the only ones who could work the car. But tom also did not let anyone take advantage of him or the family. He knew what they deserved and didn't expect anything less. Their mom always kept the whole family fed no matter what. They might had eaten the same thing days and days in a row but she was not going to let her family go without eating. She basically kept the whole family healthy and Tom kept them safe against things that were not fair. Their father went out to work and did all the hard laboring jobs to help the family. He always worked at solving difficult problems in situations where the whole family didn't know what to do. He would never let it show if he was worried or sad he had to stay tough for the family. He would never want his kids to worry. Now most people would think the kids caused more problems than help but I think otherwise. They did all the little chores that people over look. They collected wood for fires and water. They kept the Joad family alive. How could you cook with out wood for a fire? How could you live without water? I think a lot of people probably over looked the significance of each character. Each one of them had a specific duty. They had to stick together if they didn't they would have died quickly. They had a close bond and stayed strong through the hard situations.