Character Analysis
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 bathroom. He often walks around with his fly undone, and he hates it when Ma Joad has to zip him up.
Grampa's heartstrings are tugged just as the family begins to load the car. He decides he doesn't want to leave his land after all, and he becomes very stubborn, proud, and defiant. Ma Joad has to drug his coffee in order to get him into the car. That night, he dies of a stroke in Ivy and Sairy Wilson's tent and is buried nearby.