Tom Joad In The Grapes Of Wrath

“The Ghost of Tom Joad” is a song about Tom Joad in the book The Grapes of Wrath. Through this song, Bruce Springsteen tells the story of Tom Joad traveling back home to Oklahoma after being released from McAlester Prison. He is like a ghost in the sense that no one has seen him in 4 years. He travels from the prison to his home in Oklahoma and on the way he runs into his former preacher Jim Casey. Tom and Jim continue on the journey to the Joad House, discussing life and everything that’s happened while Tom was in prison. Tom learns that Oklahoma is in a drought and that many families were forced to move because crops fail and there was no money to pay the banks. In the first stanza, Springsteen says, “Families sleeping in the cars in the