Across the novel, readers are presented with the 1930 farmers that, in search of the American dream, find themselves trapped into a world in which the wealthy are willing to exploit the working-classes to the maximum, regardless of the fact that farmers are malnourished.
In the beginning of the book, Steinbeck presents the situation by describing the farm crops in Oklahoma having been devastated by a recent dust storm. At first Steinbeck refrains from presenting any characters as he intends to let the readers in on the topic.
Tom Joad, a young man who has just been released from prison, tells the story of how he had been imprisoned to a truck driver. During the story, Steinbeck takes advantage of several unimportant details to indirectly refer to the efforts done by the working classes to survive during the Great Depression. At the same time that Tom's arrives home a couple of bank representatives arrive with the intention of evicting several farmers.
As he finds his home, Tom, and Casy (a former preacher and friend of Tom's), are informed by an old man that Tom's family had been evicted and that they were now staying at their uncle John's. As night comes, the three have to hide in order for the police not to discover that they were illegally staying on the bank's property. Tom finds his family living with at Uncle John's house as they have undergone several changes while Tom had been imprisoned. Apparently, the family had been planning to leave Oklahoma in favor of California where life had been presumed of being better due to the flyers that they found claiming that there had been jobs there. Steinbeck again portrays how the depression had affected people as the farmers had been selling mainly anything that was worth money.
The family embarks on a trip to California and Casy joins them, as he too is desperate to find work. At the beginning of the trip the Joads had already begun to lose members of the family with the both the family dog and Grampa Joad perishing. After Grampa's death, the Joads are accompanied by the Wilsons that also travel to California, and, have a car. Not long after going to road again the Wilson's car breaks down and it takes some time before Tom and his younger brother get the car repaired.
As they finally reach California the two families discover that the propaganda in the flyers had been filled with lies and that there had been no work there and furthermore the policemen were harassing everyone. The Wilsons decide to stay in a camp from California because a member of their family gets sick. The Joads travel on and it does not take long and another unhappy incident happens to the family: the death of Granma. The conditions in California are presented as being horrible, with the people of the state being on the verge of a revolt.
After some time on the road the Joads stop at a camp in order to search for work. During their stay in the camp they find out of the existence of a government camp named Weedpatch where the authorities are kind to the residents and all of the basic needs are assured. After an incident with the police, Casy is being taken to jail after having punched a policeman. Shortly after, the Joad starts...
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