Grapes of Wrath 9 Jim Casy

Of all the characters in The Grapes of Wrath, Jim Casy is probably my favorite. He is sort of portrayed as a voice of reason, and seen by other characters as a kind of weird retired preacher. He spends all of his time thinking, and usually just keeps to himself. He is nice, smart, and in some aspects inspirational because he causes Tom to change his entire way of thinking. It shows that he is nice because he gives prayers for people when they ask even though he is no longer a preacher. He gave up being a preacher because he believed he was too sinful. Casy is a character that deploys the theme that people have to work together in order for things to change. He did not start off as a thematic character, but as the story progressed he became an idealist to represent the theme. He said that he found he had no soul alone, but it was a piece of a great big soul (Steinbeck, 418.) He is all about helping others. He even takes the fault for fighting the cop, and goes to jail for someone else’s wrongdoing. Most likely he did even more thinking in prison which is probably what led him to organize the workers in a strike against the wages. If he would have continued to live he probably could have caused some kind of a revolution. But even though he was killed his radical ideas are passed on to Tom. I think this story would be very interesting if it was primarily in Casy’s perspective. It would be full of deep thought and ideas, and you would get to see how his ideas changed. You would also see what his plans were for his future and the future he wanted for others. It would also show what happened in jail and how he got the strike going. Even though the story was not from his perspective, Jim Casy was an important character.

Steinbeck, John. The Grapes of Wrath. New York: Penguin, 2006. Print.