The Grapes of Wrath Travel Journal (Chapters 16-19, D)*

Before the Joad family experiences a change in the concept of "family/unity", they capture "unity". As they travel to California, the family begins to break apart and crumble. The Joad family heavily emphasized togetherness. For example, when they made the difficult and heart-breaking decision to leave Oklahoma, they made sure everyone in the family would travel to California. Grampa insisted on staying behind, but the Joads decided to drug him and carry him onto the caravan. At one point also, their car was breaking down. Tom and Al suggested a plan where the family would split up, Tom and Al would continue to work on the car while the rest of the family would continue to travel to California. With this plan the two brothers would later join the family, however, Ma aggressively rejected this idea and insisted that the family "stay together."Family is incredibly important to the Joads as it is crucial to their survival regarding their journey. They are all dependent on each other and provide for a stronger community when they are a family and when they are more unified.

"In the evening a strange thing happened: the twenty families became one family, the children were the children of all. The loss of home became one loss, and the golden time in the West was one dream..."(193)

The idea of family and unity as it is expressed in this section has changed since embarking on their journey, because the Joad family is slowly breaking away from the concept of family, unity, and community. As the family travels to California, they are faced with many obstacles. The family are losing family members as they finally reach California. When they first leave Oklahoma, there are 12 members of the family and their dog. However, when they finally reach California, many have left or died. Granma, Grampa, Noah, Connie, and Jim Casy have all left the group by the end of Chapter 20. Not to mention, the Wilsons tagged along and subsequently left after Grampa died. I think the value of family begins to decrease as the family makes their way to California. The family is not really affected by the loss of members as they go farther into the West. I think the family's struggles overpower their previous principles of family. The family struggles to survive as they make it to California and the concept of family is slowly vanishing. The bond they had is slowly disappearing, because they start to focus on how to make a living in the west. Family begins to lose its meaning as everyone begins to focus on themselves, and the members that leave capture this idea. I think the Joad family eventually separates themselves from community and helping others, as they only focus on themselves as a family.  Also, the Joads golden time in the West turned into many dreams I think. As they travel further west they hear things about California that influence their dreams of life in California, everyone in the family wants to do their own thing. At this point, family isn't really family anymore.