"S’pose we was down. You’d a give us a han’."
"Yes," Ma said, "we would."
"Or anybody."
"Or anybody. Use’ ta be the fambly was fust. It ain’t so now. It’s anybody. Worse off we get, the more we got to do."
– John Steinbeck
The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 30. Ma Joad is talking to Mrs. Wainwright about people’s responsibility to help each other. For Ma, the needs of immediate family members were her first and only care. But she has learned from experience on the road that her duty is now to the greater community of disadvantaged people. This speaks to the novel’s theme of the individual versus the community. It also reflects the idea of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s "Over-Soul."