Ivy and Sarah (Sairy) Wilson

This is a migrant couple which appears in the book when Joads met them on the first night of their journey. Joads were looking for a place to sleep and accidentally found them. Wilson’s car went broken, and Al Joad helps to fix it.

When Granpa unpredictably dies of a stroke, they kindly propose to Joads their tent space and quilt. They even read lines from their own Bible to bury Granpa.

After Al fixes the car, two families understand that they like each other and propose to continue the trip together. They were traveling happily and long up to California desert where the unpredictable thing happened. Sarah – wide of Ivy, told him that she couldn’t continue moving on because of her illness. The Joads say goodbye to the couple as they knew – wife won’t survive. 

The Joads' relationships with the Wilsons are like a microcosm of the larger picture of migration. We can see how the relationships between people should be, and how they are in reality.

It isn’t even bad that Joads left, leaving the couple alone with their problem. The author showed the life as it was at that time (and truly saying as it is now). When life forces you to make a choice – to live or to help, you will choose to live. Even if you want to help someone very much your instinct for self-preservation will win. That is life, and that is why Joads can’t be judged in this episode.