"Where the hell you s’pose he’s goin’?" said Joad. "I seen turtles all my life. They’re always goin’ someplace. They always seem to want to get there."
– John Steinbeck
The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 6. When Tom unwraps the turtle from his jacket and puts it on the ground, it continues to head southward in the same direction it was going when he picked it up. Here he is comparing the animal’s wandering to his. The turtle is a metaphor and a foreshadowing of the journey that migrant farmers such as the Joads will make in search of a better life.