I been all day an" all night hidin" alone. Guess who I been thinkin" about? Casy! He talked a lot. But now I been thinkin" what he said, an" I can remember-all of it. Says one time he went out in the wilderness to find his own soul, an" he foun" he didn" have no soul that was his"n. Says he foun" he jus" got a little piece of a soul wasn't no good "less it was with the rest, an" was whole. Funny how I remember. Didn" think I was even listenin". But I know now a fella ain't no good alone."".
Response:.
In The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck genuinely develops his characters through the progression of the story. The harsh movement west by Tom and his family changed him drastically. In the end, though what Casy said to him, he came to understand that being with other people and focussing on the future were key to him. .
In this quote, Tom reflects on what Casy had said earlier in the novel. Casy believed that nobody had a soul. Actually, he thought that everyone was a part of a greater soul, and should always be there for one another. Unlike Casy, people like Muley Graves and Granpa Joad are in opposition to this theory of interdependent living. Both of them wanted to stay behind instead of going to California. They would rather have lived alone and through nature than with others. .
At the time, Casy's original speech meant nothing to Tom. However, later, while speaking with his mother, Tom shows that Casy's knowledge had inspired him to move on and make himself a part of this whole human spirit, the true Holy Spirit. Also, Tom told his mother that he had "been all day an" all night hidin" alone." At the end of this passage, he mentioned that he knew "now a fella ain't no good alone." He wanted to be around people. Most of all, he wanted to help the human cause that unites everyone in this "spirit" that Casy was talking about. .
This quote also shows a drastic change in Tom. At the beginning of the novel, he wasn't looking towards the future.
