Al Joad
Al Joad, the second son of the Joad family, enters the novel as a sixteen-year-old "smart aleck" whose twin obsessions are engines and girls. His mechanical aptitude, however, proves essential to the family's survival. It is Al who selects the Hudson Super-Six truck that carries the Joads west, and his knowledge of automobiles — from diagnosing a burned-out connecting-rod bearing to jury-rigging piston rings with brass wire — keeps the overloaded vehicle moving across the continent. His role as the family's de facto mechanic gives him a new seriousness and a place in the family council that his youth would otherwise deny him.
Identity and Introduction
Al is first described as a "smart-aleck sixteen-year-old" whose mind runs on "nothing but girls and engines." He wears his jeans turned up eight inches to show his heeled boots, sports a three-inch belt with copper figures, red arm bands on his blue shirt, and a rakish Stetson hat. His swagger is that of "a rooster about to crow." Yet when he first sees his older brother Tom after four years, his boasting face changes: "admiration and veneration shone in his eyes, and his swagger fell away." Al unconsciously becomes like Tom, his handsome face brooding, his shoulders relaxing. He had heard how people pointed him out in Sallisaw: "That's Al Joad. His brother killed a fella with a shovel." The prison calm and the smooth, hard face trained to indicate nothing impress Al deeply, and he instantly adopts a more subdued manner.
Mechanical Skill and Responsibility
Al's expertise with automobiles is established early. Before the family buys the Hudson, he gives it a thorough inspection: he sticks his finger in the differential to check for sawdust, opens the gear box, tests the clutch, rolls the wheels for line, and checks the frame for splaying. He notes a cracked cell in the battery and makes the seller replace it. His reasoning for choosing the Hudson is practical: "Wreckin' yards is full a Hudson Super-Sixes, an' you can buy parts cheap." Once the journey begins, Al becomes "one with his engine, every nerve listening for weaknesses." He drives with his whole body, his restless eye jumping from the road to the instrument panel. When the connecting-rod bearing fails in New Mexico, Al is defensive — "I kep' plenty oil in" — but he admits he has never fitted a bearing, deferring to Tom's experience. Tom reassures him: "You done a damn good job a pickin'. We ain't had hardly no trouble with her at all." Later, when the truck's battery runs down, Al cranks the engine by hand, and when a tire blows, he works alongside Tom to patch it, pumping the tire and helping to fit the repair.
Arc Through the Plot: From Boy to Man
Al's personal development mirrors the family's physical journey. Early in the trip, he is restless and eager to break away. He tells Tom he wants to go "down the line" with a couple of pints, and later says, "I'm goin' out on my own purty soon. Fella can make his way lot easier if he ain't got a fambly." He dreams of getting a job in a garage, living in a room, eating in restaurants, and going to the movies every night. But as the family's circumstances worsen, Al's sense of responsibility grows. At the Hooverville, he helps Floyd Knowles grind valves and listens to Floyd's bitter account of the labor system. When the deputies come and Casy sacrifices himself, Al wants to stay and fight, but Casy orders him away: "If you mess in this your whole fambly, all your folks, gonna get in trouble." Al reluctantly obeys.
At the Weedpatch government camp, Al's romantic life takes a decisive turn. He meets Aggie Wainwright, a pretty blond girl, and begins walking out with her every night. When the Joads prepare to leave for the peach-picking job at the Hooper ranch, Al tells Aggie they will get married "sometime," but she presses him: "You said purty soon!" He promises to come back with "a pocketful a jack." At the Hooper ranch, Al works alongside the others picking peaches, though he complains, "I ruther work in a garage." When the strike is broken and the wage drops to two and a half cents a box, Al is among those who help build the levee against the rising floodwaters.
Relationships and Conflict
Al's relationship with his brother Tom is central to his growth. Tom teases him about his girl-chasing but also defends him: "You done a damn good job a pickin'." When Al is defensive about the burned-out bearing, Tom tells him bluntly: "You jus' scrabblin' ass over tit, fear somebody gonna pin some blame on you. ... Don' keep ya guard up when nobody ain't sparrin' with ya." Al absorbs the lesson. His relationship with his father is more strained. Pa calls him a "smart aleck" and complains about his womanizing, but Al's mechanical authority is respected: "Even Pa, who was the leader, would hold a wrench and take orders from Al." With his mother, Al is more tender. When Ma stands up to Pa with the jack handle, Al is impressed: "I sure did pick a nice time to get paroled." Ma, in turn, worries about Al's restlessness and asks him to stay with the family.
Change and Ending
By the novel's end, Al has transformed from a swaggering adolescent into a young man ready to marry. When the Wainwrights express concern that Aggie might "get in trouble," Ma and Pa agree to talk to Al. Al himself announces to the family: "Me an' Aggie Wainwright, we figgers to get married, an' I'm gonna git a job in a garage, an' we'll have a rent' house for a while." Ma is glad: "We're awful glad." She begs him to stay until spring, and he reluctantly agrees. During the flood, Al refuses to leave the boxcar camp because Aggie is there: "If Aggie goes, I'm a-goin' too." He helps build the platform to keep the family's possessions dry and stays behind with the truck when the others evacuate. His final act in the novel is to remain with Aggie, committed to building a new life.
Thematic Significance
Al Joad embodies the tension between individual ambition and family loyalty that runs through the novel. His mechanical skill represents the adaptability required for survival in a changing world, while his romantic attachment to Aggie Wainwright signals the continuation of the family line even as the Joads themselves fragment. His journey from a "randy-pandy" boy to a responsible young man mirrors the novel's larger movement from isolation to connection, from self-interest to commitment. Al's decision to marry and settle — even temporarily — offers a counterpoint to Tom's fugitive existence and Rose of Sharon's tragic loss, suggesting that hope for the next generation lies in the ordinary, stubborn acts of love and work.
