Grapes of Wrath- Al Joad

Al Joad is the common teenage guy in this book. Al enjoys all different cars and the only thing he likes more is women. Al goes around on the trip talking to girls and putting his mechanic skills to work.

Al finally finds the girl of his dreams and stays there. When the family is ready to head out Al tells Ma that he wants to stay behind with the girl that he loves. Ma can't say no to her own son who is ready to settle down for his life and start a family. I think that it is really cool how we can watch Al throughout the book transforming from a regular old teenage guy into a full-fledged man who is ready to make a living and start a family.

You would think that a guy like Al wouldn't be very useful for the family, but he proves me wrong multiple times throughout their journey. Al is a mechanic that has a passion for cars. While they are on the road, they have to stop many times from car failures. Most of the time its nothing big and can be fixed and have them back on the road within a couple of hours. Sometimes though they would need a professional mechanic and that's where Al's expertise is really admired. He was able to fix their truck on different accounts for different reasons along with any friends the Joad's had met along the way that had car problems. Basically if your vehicle was struggling and needed a tune up in the camps, Al was your guy. He usually worked hard and did most of it for free. This reason being most of the work he did was for their "neighbors" and friends they met and traveled with on the roads to California.

Al was a good guy that proved many assumptions wrong in the beginning. He was admired by many for his good work and loved doing it. I thought it was cool having a teenager in the story, so that people of all ages could relate to a character. I don't plan on being a mechanic, but there were times that I could relate to something going on in his life.

Steinbeck, John. The Grapes of Wrath. New York: Penguin, 2006. Print.