Tom: Empty Shell?

Every chapter from Rhetoric has brought us to placing various characters into categories and stages of development. Just today, we discussed pilgrimages versus quests and which characters think one or the other. Time and time again, we get to Tom and are not really sure what to say. What is it about Tom Joad that makes him so hard to place? Even from the beginning of the novel, we are not really sure about Tom Joad. He has just gotten out of prison on parole after 4 years. His conversation with the truck driver draws us to keep our eyes on him through the story, as the narrator wants. Why, then, do we not get to see his ideals, fears, and changes as well as we see in the other characters?

There are main characters created by the author specifically to be the “empty shell” readers fit into as the story goes along, like Bella from Twilight. Could Tom Joad be the empty shell we, as readers, fit into? Obviously, there are some descriptions set up as to the kind of person Tom is, but he is relatively vague; Oakie, no regrets, fresh from prison. If this is the case, is it possible that we are supposed to develop along with Tom Joad as he goes through these hardships with his family?

In all honesty, I’m not so sure of this theory. From what I have read of “shell characters”, they usually go through little, if not zero, changes through the story to accommodate the various differences in the readers. If there are changes, normally there is not so much a clear, specific beginning state. In Twilight, (I know. bear with me) Bella does not have any sort of ideals about the Supernatural (vampires and werewolves). She is simply a “normal teenager girl.” Did Tom start out as a “average oakie” and then developed his and our thoughts on migrant workers and their lives during the 1930’s?

The Wisdom in The Grapes of Wrath

Though I have already read this book before, I feel as though there was a lot I missed the first time around. I have especially taken a liking to Jim Casey, especially when he is first introduced in Chapter 4. He has an odd sort of wisdom many people did not have back then. 

"There ain't no sin and there ain't no virtue. There's just stuff people do. It's all part of the same thing. And some of the things folks do is nice, and some ain't nice, but that's as far as any man got a right to say" (Steinbeck 23).

The development we can already see in the introduction of his character is amazing. Normally, in books, the author starts a character one way and develops what they will be like for the rest of the book, and though I know Steinbeck does this as well, I enjoy seeing the development that has already happened to the character. I feel like this makes Jim Casey seem more real and less created. He used to be a virtuous man to people in the typical preacher way-- trying to make better people who turn from sin, though he did not follow what he preached. We see, in the deep conversation that occurs between him and Tom Joad, that he has found a new perspective on the bigger picture of life: mankind is sinful and should not judge their own actions and make themselves hypocrites. It takes a very wise man to step off his holy status and understand his own sin. Steinbeck did this very well.

Update: Forgot to end with a question.

Is this development of Jim Casey in line with what Booth says in Chapter 2? Does Steinbeck properly disguise himself to make his description of Jim Casey realistic? Is the story telling itself?