The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck is a story about life in the great depression and how difficult it was to make ends meet. Steinbeck tells the story through the Joad family and how they struggle to survive. Also he has short chapters about the background and what was going on outside of the Joads. In the beginning of the book Tom, the second eldest son, is hitch hiking back home from McAlester, the prison. He was just paroled from a murder sentence after spending about four years in jail. When he gets off of the truck he runs into the preacher, Casy. The only thing different is that Casy is no longer a preacher