1. Why does Jim Nolan get involved Harry Nilson? If you were John Steinbeck and you were going to offer your readers a thesis—an argument for writing this book—what would it be?

Basically Jim comes to communism through starvation. Jim is really at his breaking point. Jim's own father was bludgeoned by a policeman's stick. Harry initiates Jim into the communist party to fight abuse by business. Steinbeck was horrified by the treatment of mid-western farm families during the depression. I certainly am no John Steinbeck but a thesis might sound something like this,

"During the depression, mid -western farm families were relegated to slave labor to feed their families. The abuses of big business on these people went largely unnoticed by the American public."

Idk