The Grapes of Wrath Characters

Tom Joad's Facebook ProfileTom Joad's Facebook profile might tell us lots of juicy things. Like the fact that he drinks whiskey on occasion, he used to pull girls' pigtails when he was little, and...

Ma Joad is one tough cookie, and she also knows how to salt a pig. We first get to know Ma Joad through a story Tom tells the preacher and Muley Graves:"I seen her beat the hell out of a tin peddle...

Pa Joad may be the patriarch of the family, but he sure is a quiet one. Having fathered six children and having lived in Sallisaw, Oklahoma for all of his life, farming the land, Pa Joad has his ha...

Who is Reverend Casy? Well, he's a lecherous old man who has given up on his life as a preacher. That's the simple answer. But, boy oh boy, do we miss out on a lot of good stuff if we forget to loo...

Uncle John is Pa Joad's lonely older brother. He's a bit of a recluse, but he's got a big heart nonetheless. John used to be married once upon a time, but one day his wife complained of a pain in h...

Granma is the matriarch of the Joad family. Her heart breaks when her husband dies in the first leg of the Joad journey westward, and she grows sicker and sicker until she dies quietly as the famil...

Grampa Joad is the family's initial patriarch, and he and his wife have to sleep in the barn in the beginning of the novel because they need to get up so often in the middle of the night to use the...

Al Joad is Tom Joad's sixteen-year-old brother who likes to "billygoat" and "tomcat" his way around the country (a.k.a. his hormones are raging). He drove a truck for a company the year before, and...

Rose of Sharon is Tom's younger sister. She is married to Connie Rivers, and has been staying with his family. She is pregnant with their first child, and "she [is] all secrets now she [is] pregnan...

Connie is Rose of Sharon's nineteen-year-old husband who dreams of going to school in California and working for the radio there. Connie is devoted to his wife, but he's a little fearful of her too...

Noah Joad is Ma and Pa Joad's oldest son. He "left the impression of being misshapen, his head or his body or his legs or his mind; but no misshapen member could be recalled" (9.87). Pa Joad was te...

Ruthie is Tom Joad's twelve-year-old sister, and she is both "grime-faced and wild" and "a little serious in her young-ladiness" (10.46). She can be a trouble-maker too, starting fights when she ca...

Ten years old and "grime-faced," Winfield is the baby of the Joad family, and he's a "trifle of a snot-nose, a little of a brooder back of the barn, and an inveterate collector and smoker of snipes...

Ivy and Sairy Wilson are the first people that the Joads encounter on their journey to California. The Joads camp next to them on the first night on the road, and the two families become two peas i...

Muley is a friend of the Joad family. Like the Joads, Muley's family was forced to leave their house and their land. While his wife and children chose to head west to California, Muley is too proud...

Willy Feeley used to be a friend of the Joad family. Now he works for the landowners, and he drives the tractor that destroys the tenant farmers' homes, that runs families out of town. He gets paid...

Floyd is one of the first people that the Joads encounter in California. He lives in the Hooverville with a wife and children, and is wise to the ways of job-hunting in California. He fills Tom and...

Tom meets the Wallaces during his first morning in Weedpatch. They are an incredibly warm and welcoming family (a father and a son), and they share their breakfast with Tom. Timothy and Wilkie help...

Mr. Thomas owns a small farm and gives Tom, Timothy, and Wilkie work digging a ditch. Mr. Thomas is a good man, and he hates how corrupt the Farmer's Association (run by the bank of the West) is an...

The Wainwrights share the boxcar with the Joads near Tulare, CA. The two families get along famously. In true Al Joad fashion, Al gets his flirt on with Aggie Wainwright. Right about the time that...