Chapters 27-30: The Ghost of Tom Joad

Tom does something very selfless in order for the family to not have to live with the fear of him being caught and them being accused for hiding a criminal. Essentially, everything that is wrong with the country as this point in time sort of represents Tom. Police beating folks for trying to survive, the rich farmers hardly giving workers a dime, etc. Tom is that. He is the struggle that is going on throughout all of these family's lives. I am unsure if Steinbeck intended for that connection to be made when writing this, but it is something that finally clicked in my mind as I was nearing the end. 
After Casy dies, Tom changes his view on life and in a way, becomes the new Casy. It's not that he obtains an abundance of knowledge on life, he just starts to see things differently. In his last conversation with Ma, he tells her that even though he will be gone, he will still live on in everything that the family endures and must go through during their struggle to restart their lives. 
When you think of ghosts, you picture mysterious sounds or shadows dancing across the floor. Ghosts are not visible, and to the rich farmers, migrants are invisible as well, as if they are ghosts. 'The Ghost of Tom Joad' is not just about Tom becoming a ghost when he disappears, it is about all of the Okies that have moved West in search of work but found themselves become transparent when it came to obtaining work and being able to live like humans should, rather than sleep in dusty tent camps along the sides of roads. When you have everything that you want in life, you tend to not see the needs of others, and only care about your own problems, not matter how more fortunate you may be than them. The idea of this rich vs poor society is merely ghosts and the people who fear them.

Chapters 21-26: What Jail Taught a Preacher

How I interpret what Casy is saying is that even though there are consequences for doing something that is vital for survival and no one may not care to listen to your reasoning, by speaking up enough, eventually someone is going to hear you and come along and make a change. Casy realized during that time that there are a lot of things that people constitute as needs, but when you break it down, there are so few things that we truly need in life, but we all just get so caught up in living a grand life that we tend to miss what is really important. After this conversation, it gives a better understanding why Casy lives such a simple life and does not see the point in having all sorts of fancy things because he does not need them to survive. 
While he is in jail, Casy and the inmates are served rotten beans for their meal. One prisoner is not happy with this and complains. Nothing happens, go figure. But this one prisoner standing up for something gave others courage to stand up and complain and yell. It is an obvious theme throughout this book that there is strength in numbers. With every fiber of his being, Casy believes that if all of the migrant workers stand up to the farming companies about their low wages and minimal hiring, then they can make a change.
These kind of things do not just happen in novels; they happen all over the world. Take a journey to the other side of the globe and look at the revolts in countries such as Egypt and Libya. In Egypt, the citizens (mostly teenagers and young adults) had had enough of the government and decided to do something about it. The government responded by blocking social networking sites in order to prevent people from spreading the news of their rallies. Fortunately, it is impossible to block the internet from the entire world, so news got around and in the end, the people won.

Chapters 17-20: Life in Hooverville

Everyone has their breaking point during this whole experience of going west in search of work. The interesting thing about this book is that Steinbeck does not make it obvious that the majority of these families in camps and Hooverville has reached that point, which allows for the reader to dig deeper into the novel and ask questions along the way. Ma has not lost it yet, and anything sort of indication that she has, she hides it quite well. It was a difficult time when the Joad's were in that camp and Ma could not stand the thought of all of those hungry children and knowing that there was so little that she could do to help them. 
Looking at that scene in the book, I instantly think of the hunger problem around the world and how there are millions of people that go to bed hungry and of the families that struggle feeding their children. I am not sure if Steinbeck was intending to include a bigger picture during this chapter, but that is what I take away from it. I feel Ma's pain because it is such a frustrating thing knowing that there are people that need help, but you just do not know what to do to make things better. 
Ma knows that if her family is going to make it in a time where every family is fighting for the same thing, that they have to stay strong and maintain the mindset that they can achieve what they set out to. I think that Ma has such great leadership qualities about her and I really admire that. Throughout their entire journey she is continuously telling the family that they have to stick together and that it will be worth it in California. If Ma ever became weak, the family would fall apart. 
When she left the remainder of the soup out for those kids, it showed that she knew that she had to help, but was not sure what to do, so she gave all that she had, despite the minimal amount, because she knew that it was the right thing. It really shows a lot about a person's character when they do things like that, and it is something that I am continuously striving to improve about myself.