The Grapes of Wrath The Wilsons

As the Joads were traveling along Highway 66, going about things business as usual, frolicking in their car, and discussing how they were to go about living when they reached their destination, they decide to park their car next to another family who seem to be down on their luck. "They went through Bethany and out on the other side. In a ditch, where a culvert went under the road, an old touring car was pulled off the highway and a little tent was pitched beside it, and smoke came out of a stove pipe through the tent. Tom pointed ahead. "Theres some folks campin'. Looks like as good a place as we seen." He slowed his motor and pulled to a stop beside the road. The hood of the old touring car was up, and a middle aged man stood looking down at the motor. He wore a cheap straw sombrero, a blue shirt, and a black, spotted vest, and his jeans were stiff and shiny with dirt. His face was lean, the deep cheek lines great furrows down his face so that his cheek bones and chin stood out sharply. He looked up at the Joad truck and his eyes were puzzled and angry." (Steinbeck 134) After conversing with the Wilsons for a time, their true personalities came out. That is being reasonable, all around nice people who actually care for the well being of others. So nice in fact, that they helped to bury Grandpa's body when he died. Later on they decided to travel with the Joads until they felt they were being a burden on them. If there is one thing I could say about the Wilsons, it would be that I see them as a light shining in the darkness. Where the darkness is the horrors of highway 66. Thus they go in the books as nice decent people who were willing to help another family with their cadavers while they themselves were having car troubles.

Steinbeck, John, and Robert J. DeMott. The Grapes of Wrath. New York: Penguin, 2006. Print.