Tom is in hiding because he has accidentally killed a man in a fight.

He never calls them by name, John Steinbeck immortalizes the Wobblies in The

Grapes of Wrath. The novel is about the life of the Joad family. The Joads have lost

their farm during the Depression, the family has come to California seeking work.

There is no permanent work for anyone, moreover, the money earned by picking

crops is not enough to feed the family.

Union organizers have talked to the workers about organizing and striking.

Tom, the oldest Joad son, has listened to them, however, he has not yet joined them.

Tom is in hiding because he has accidentally killed a man in a fight. He spends all

his daylight hours alone, he has lots of time to think about his family’s situation.

Tom becomes convinced that life is unfair for his people, he decides to leave the family, find the union men, and work with them.

He is inarticulate when he tries to explain to Ma what he hopes to do he gropes

for words to express his frustration and his hope. Ma asks him how she will know

about him, she worries that he might get killed and she would not know. Tom’s reassurances are almost mystical: “Wherever they’s a fight so hungry people can eat,

I’ll be there an’ when our folks eat the stuff they raise an’ live in the houses they

build, I’ll be there.”

If Tom had had a copy of the Wobblies’ “little red song book,” he could have

found less mystical words. Every copy of the book contained the Wobblies’

Preamble, the first sentence in the Preamble was unmistakably clear “The working

class and the employing class have nothing in common.” Tom would have understood those words he would have believed them too.

now, of course, the quality and the seasonability of these winter dreams varied, but the stuff of them remained.   they persuaded dexter several years later to pass up a business course at the state university—his father, prospering now, would have paid his way—for the precarious advantage of attending an older and more famous university in the east, where he was bothered by his scanty funds. but do not get the impression, because his winter dreams happened to be concerned at first with musings on the rich, that there was anything merely snobbish in the boy. he wanted not association with glittering things and glittering people—he wanted the glittering things themselves. often he reached out for the best without knowing why he wanted it—and sometimes he ran up against the mysterious denials and prohibitions in which life indulges.

there you go thats what we are missing