Character Analysis
Ruthie is Tom Joad's twelve-year-old sister, and she is both "grime-faced and wild" and "a little serious in her young-ladiness" (10.46). She can be a trouble-maker too, starting fights when she can't get what she wants. She's like that little girl who's starved for attention, and who only knows how to get what she wants by kicking and screaming and coercing people. She gets Winfield into trouble all the time, and she pretends to be tougher than she is.