The Wainwrights are another migrant family looking for work in California. They share a boxcar with the Joads on the ranch where they pick cotton. Like the Wilsons, the Wainwrights represent the necessity of working together to form one community in order to survive. During the rains, Mrs. Wainwright helps Ma deliver Rose of Sharon's stillborn baby, and Mr. Wainwright helps Pa to build the embankment to stem the flood. Forced to drop familial boundaries, the Joads learn to accept help as well as to give it. When Al becomes engaged to the Wainwright's daughter, Agnes, he tears down the cloth separating the two halves of the boxcar, symbolically creating one family.
Connect with CliffsNotes
