Casy warns Tom that strikebreaking will only drive down wages, and when a deputy murders Casy for his labor organizing, Tom fights back and kills the deputy. Hounded by the law and the local citizenry, the Joads find work as strikebreakers. Despite rumors of labor violence, the family nonetheless hits the road once again. Poverty and desperation begin to break apart the family as the husband of pregnant daughter Rosasharn leaves her. As the Joads cross the great California desert, Grandma dies, and the remainder of the family emerges from the desert to find no jobs and hoards of starving migrants. Their hopes for a bright future are dimmed when a man at a roadside camp warns of no work in California, but the family continues on. Soon after, Grandpa dies and is buried alongside the road. Joined by their friend Casy, a former "fire and brimstone" preacher, the Joads begin their long trek west on Route 66. Tom finally locates his family as they are about to pack their belongings on a dilapidated truck and head West, lured by promises of work and high wages in California. Muley, his half-crazed neighbor, tells Tom about the recent dispossession of the sharecroppers, who have been driven out by drought and the greedy land companies. Tom Joad returns from prison, where he was serving time for manslaughter, to his family's Oklahoma farm and finds the house abandoned.
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