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Rose of Sharon is Tom’s younger sister. She is married to Connie and is pregnant with their first child. Rose of Sharon complains a lot and she is very selfish. She only cares about herself and expects people to only care about her as well because she is pregnant. She wants to live in California with Connie and have a house to raise her baby in. On page 224, Rose of Sharon states, “…we wanna live in a town. Connie gonna get a job in a store or maybe a factory.” She also tells her family on page 224, “An’ he gonna study at home, maybe radio, so he can git to be a expert an’ maybe later have his own store.” Rose of Sharon expects a lot out of Connie.
She also constantly worries about her baby’s health. She gets extremely upset when she witnesses the family dog dying and when she was told about all the sins she has to avoid at the Hooverville camp. She worries that the dog dying and the sins she could commit will hurt the baby. Rose of Sharon not only gets upset about these events but she gets upset when Connie leaves her in Hooverville. She worries now that she won’t have a home to raise her child in and she can’t raise a baby by herself. She hopes that Connie will return throughout almost the entire book.
Rose of Sharon helps Ma out a lot when the book progresses. She helps cook and clean and asks Ma for advice. Later on, Rose of Sharon helps her family pick cotton because she starts to notice how much the family is suffering. She has a realization and wants to help work to get money and pay for food and other necessities. Unfortunately, she gets sick and then goes into labor. Her baby is delivered stillborn during a flood and Uncle John sends it away down the raging river. When the family flees the boxcar due to flooding, they find a starving man and young boy in a nearby barn. Rose of Sharon knows exactly what to do; she breast feeds the starving man back to health. This transformation from a selfish adolescent to a selfless adult is the turning point in Rose of Sharon’s life. A mysterious smile creeps across Rose of Sharon’s face when nursing the man, which then ends the book.
Some of Rose of Sharon most important actions in The Grapes of Wrath include worrying about her baby’s health, getting upset when Connie leaves her in the Hooverville camp, picking cotton with her family, birthing her stillborn baby, and breast feeding the starving man back to health. Before Rose of Sharon had her baby, she was a selfish adolescent girl. This characteristic is reflected in her worrying about her baby’s health and getting upset when Connie leaves her. She is very foolish and believes anything anyone tells her. When the superstitious lady scared her at the Hooverville camp, she thought that the dancing would harm her baby’s health. Rose of Sharon’s adolescent behavior is also evident when she gets extremely upset when Connie leaves her. She thinks that she won’t have a house to live in in California and she worries that having a baby by herself will be a lot of work. Later on in the book, through picking cotton with her family to birthing her stillborn baby, and breast feeding the starving man, Rose of Sharon turns into a selfless adult. She realizes that not everything is about her. Rose of Sharon starts turning into a selfless adult when she picks cotton with her family and turns into a full adult when she helps feed the starving man. Rose of Sharon had her full transformation when she birthed her stillborn baby which made her open her eyes to the real world.

Connie is 19 years old. He is married to Rose of Sharon and dreams of going to California with her and the Joads. In California, he expects to study and get a job so he and Rose of Sharon can buy a house and raise their child. When the Joads travel to the Hooverville camp, Connie decides that he is going to leave Rose of Sharon and their unborn baby without saying goodbye which upsets Rose of Sharon very much. He never comes back or is brought up in the text