"I been thinkin’ what he said, an’ I can remember – all of it. Says one time he went out in the wilderness to find his own soul, an’ he foun’ he didn’t have no soul that was his’n. Says he foun’ he jus’ got a little piece of a great big soul. Says a wilderness ain’t no good, ’cause his little piece of a soul wasn’t no good ‘less it was with the rest, an’ was whole. Funny how I remember. Didn’ think I was even listenin’. But I know now a fella ain’t no good alone."
– John Steinbeck
The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 28. Tom Joad is talking to Ma in the darkness of his cave during his self-enforce exile there to evade the law. He speaks of Jim Casy’s revelation when he went into the wilderness to discover his own soul. What he learned was that the answer is not in the wilderness, but in uniting with all other souls. In Casy’s religion we are all part of the one great soul, a universal spirit. Tom is about to leave his wilderness and join with the other migrant worker souls in the fight for equality and justice.