Connie Rivers
Connie Rivers, Rose of Sharon's nineteen-year-old husband, enters the Joad family as a sharp-faced, lean young man of Texas strain, with pale blue eyes that are sometimes dangerous, sometimes kindly, and sometimes frightened. He is a good hard worker who drinks enough but not too much, fights when required, and never boasts, yet he sits quietly in a gathering and manages to be recognized. He marries a plump, passionate hoyden, and in the early months of the journey he is proud and fearful of the change pregnancy brings to his wife, standing close so that his body touches hers at hip and shoulder, feeling that this keeps a relation that might be departing.
Dreams of a Better Life
Connie and Rose of Sharon share elaborate plans for California. He tears a page from Western Love Stories and intends to send off for a free course in radio repair, believing it will lead to clean work and a future. He promises her a doctor when the baby is born, possibly a hospital, a little car, an electric iron, and all new white things for the infant. They dream of living in a town rather than the country, with Connie working in a store or factory and studying at night. He even suggests that Al might work for him when he gets his own store. Ma Joad listens to the structure grow and follows it, but she warns, "We don' want you to go 'way from us. It ain't good for folks to break up." Al snorts at the idea of working for Connie, and Ma suddenly seems to know it is all a dream.
The Journey and the Cracks
On the road, Connie and Rose of Sharon exchange confidences in whispers, the world drawn close around them with her at the center and him making a small orbit about her. When the dog is killed by a car, Rose of Sharon screams, fearing the shock will hurt the baby, and Connie puts his arm around her and leads her away. But as the journey wears on and the family camps in a Hooverville, Connie's resolve weakens. He tells Rose of Sharon sullenly, "If I'd of knowed it would be like this I wouldn' of came. I'd a studied nights 'bout tractors back home an' got me a three-dollar job." When she reminds him of the radio course, he says, "Soon's I get on my feet. Get a little money." Her eyes become calculating, measuring him, and she says fiercely, "We got to have a house 'fore the baby comes. We ain't gonna have this baby in no tent."
Abandonment
Connie disappears during the chaos of the Hooverville raid. When the family is forced to flee the burning camp, Rose of Sharon demands, "You seen Connie?" Al replies, "Way to hell an' gone up the river. He's goin' south." She asks, "Was—was he goin' away?" and Al says, "I don' know." Ma asks what Connie said to her, and Rose of Sharon answers sullenly, "Said it would a been a good thing if he stayed home an' studied up tractors." Pa declares, "Connie wasn' no good. I seen that a long time. Didn' have no guts, jus' too big for his overhalls." Ma insists they make out like he is dead, for the baby's sake: "You wouldn' say no bad things about Connie if he's dead." Tom leaves word at the store that they have gone south, but Connie never reappears. Rose of Sharon is left to carry her pregnancy alone, her dreams of ice and a white house shattered, and the family continues westward without him.
