In the early chapters of The Grapes of Wrath, we are introduced to Jim Casy, an ex-preacher who is pondering thoughts about his own faith. He speaks to Tom as a friend, confiding in him a revelation that he has recently had. Casy expresses belief that there is no God, and there is no Jesus. He only believes in the Holy Spirit, and he believes it to be in every being, every man and woman. He also believes that there's no sin and virtue - just stuff people do. And who's to say it's right or wrong?
Once Casy is introduced, it becomes clear that the novel is not about the Joads or random, one-shot scenes of the bigger picture. Instead, the novel is communicating Casy's message of a spiritual union, a world without sin and virtue. Constantly, migrant families stick together and stay together, feeling a connection hrough their similar situations. But is it just the situation that brings them together, or is it the connection brought about by a unified spirit - the one in every man and woman - that pulls them together and gives them the will to help each other, despite not having much themselves? The spirit that Casy talks about is everywhere - in the migrant families struggling to make a better life for themselves, in the Joad family despite members having to break away, in the turtle that was striving to get to the other side of the highway.
Perhaps Casy's message is best delivered after his death, when Tom and Ma Joad are talking about Tom having to leave. Tom comments that it's like Casy's been saying - he's just a little part of the bigger spirit, and so if Ma misses him, she can look to other people - the happy and sad, the laughing and crying, and he'll be there. Not in person, but in spirit - because in a way, everyone's just one part of a worldwide spirit, a worldwide message that Steinbeck strives to deliver throughout the entirety of the novel.
"I says, 'Maybe it ain't a sin. Maybe it's just the way folks is. Maybe we been whippin' the hell out of ourselves for nothin'.' An' I thought how some sisters took to beatin' theirselves with a three-foot shag of bobwire. An' I thought how maybe they liked to hurt themselves, an' maybe I liked to hurt myself. Well, I was laying under a tree when I figured that out, and I went to sleep. And it come night, an' it was dark when I come to. They was a coyote squakin' near by. Before I knowed it, I was sayin' out loud, 'The hell with it! 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.'" -Jim Casy
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