es, become prosperous, and eventually buy a house to settle down. The fact that the Joads traveled from a terrible place to a better place fits the romance archetype. This better place they search for is the connection to the earth that they once had in Kansas. They envision that they can find it in California as well.The characters show an obvious connection to the archetype. The romantic hero in this novel is Tom Joad. Tom is larger than life. On the trip he is the leader of the family, even superior to his father. Tom is feared and respected, for he had once killed a man in a fight. “Al tried to control his question. ‘Did-did you bust out? Of jail?’ ‘No,’ said Tom. ‘I got paroled.’‘Oh.’ And Al was a little disappointed.” In the previous quote, Tom’s brother, Al, looked up to Tom so much that he had expected him to escape. Tom is the older brother and therefore the most respected. When the father of the man Tom killed threatened to kill Tom, Tom’s grandfather said, “Don’t mess around with no Joad... You lay your sights anywheres near Tommy and I’ll take it and ram it up your ass.” Tom knows about cars, Tom knows if people are lying, and isn’t afraid to stand up for himself. Tom was always a fighter, as his mother said about him when he wanted to stop the banks from taking his house, “Tommy, don’t you go fightin’ ‘em alone. They’ll hunt you down like a coyote.”The other characters in the text are glorified and larger than life. All the characters seem muscular, which fits the archetypal pattern of a Romantic hero: “And she wrung out overalls and shirts, and the muscles of her forearms corded out,” “The sleeves of his shirt were tight on his forearms, held down by the bulging, powerful muscles.” The other family members are also respected and praised during...
