Importance of the Truck in "The Grapes of Wrath"

While people sometimes realize the importance or convenience of some of the items that they use, many times they do not acknowledge their car as one of those items. We take cars for granted and do not always realize how important they can become. The Joads, however, understood exactly how important a car was. During the Great Depression, good cars were hard to come by, and even harder to find for a reasonable price. Pa, Al, and Uncle John went to buy a car, and they understood how difficult it would be to find a car with good parts. Luckily, Al had worked with cars before, so he knew enough about cars to find one with good parts for as good of a price as they could get. They all took it back to Uncle John's, where all of the Joads were staying. They fitted the back of the truck with wooden planks so everything would fit better and began packing. Soon, they had put everything they could in the truck and headed out west. The Joad family had to live in their truck the whole way out to California. They stopped to sleep, but for the most part, they were in the truck all day, everyday. The truck was extremely important to the Joads, because it carried all of their belongings out to California. It was their only source of transportation, and without their truck, the journey would have taken much, much longer. The Joads did have some small troubles with their truck, but those problems were quickly and easily fixed by Tom and Al. The Joads heavily relied on their truck to get them out west, and they probably would not have made it to California without their truck. People take many things for granted today, cars included, but during the Great Depression, many families like the Joad family learned that one should not take things for granted, because those things can quickly be taken away.