Moving Forward

One of the pit stops that the Joads made was at a rinky dink gas station. They stopped to get water and gas when the fat man who owned the shack kept making the same comment over and over again “What’s the country comin’ to?” The fat man was rambling on and on about everyone on the move for good reasons but how no one knows what the country is comin’ to.

 Jim Casy finally gets fed up with hearing the fat man repeat the same words redundantly, so he finally tells him he has been hearing folks talk like him and askin’ why the country is the way it is and he tells him it is because they have no other choice. “They move ‘cause they want somepin better’n what they got.” It is the want and need that makes the families seek out and finally get something. The fat man even after Casy tells him why still continues to ask what the country is comin’ to. Tom Joad finally breaks in irritably by saying “Well, you ain’t never gonna know. Casy tries to tell ya an’ you just ast the same thing over and over. You aint’ askin’ nothin’; you’re just singin’ a kinda song. ‘What we comin’ to?’ You don’t wanta know. Country’s movin’ aroun’, goin places. They’s folks dyin’ all aroun’. Maybe you’ll die pretty soon, but you won’t know nothin’. I seen too many fellas like you. You don’t wanta know nothin’.”  (Steinback, 128)

The fat man symbolizes hopelessness in the country. So many people knew what was happening but couldn’t fully grasp the idea that there was honestly nothing they could do about it. The Joads, rational minded people, recognize that things are bad and that things are not fair but they are not going to sit around and not do anything. They would much rather be on the move and do whatever possible to see that the family makes it and most importantly succeeds. The entire Joad family is optimistic but not naïve, they understand that things might not be all that great in California but at least they can take a shot because anything is better than starving to death back in Oklahoma.