Purty Boy Floyd was a famous bank robber in the 1930's. His real name was Charles, and he was born in Georgia, but he grew up in Oklahoma after his family moved there in 1911.Floyd was in and out of prison for most of his life and even though Floyd pledged never to steal again when was 18, he could not resist and went on to become notorious for robbing banks throughout the Midwest. Floyd was often protected by the locals and was similar to “Robin Hood.” He was finally found and killed by FBI agents in 1934. Through the story of Purty Boy Floyd, John Steinbeck uses his novel The Grapes of Wrath to illustrate that the prison system hurts the individuals instead of rehabilitating them. The story of Floyd is connected to the allegory of the prison system in a variety of ways throughout chapter 8. Ma Joad begins speaking of the prison system by asking Tom if prison made him “mad” like Floyd. She asks him, “You ain’t poisoned mad? You don’t hate nobody? They didn’t do nothin in that jail to rot you out with crazy mad?”(98) This is indicating how her fear of prison changes a man and Ma Joad also tells Tom that she knew Floyd's mother and according to her, prison made Floyd worse than he was before. Ma loved Tom and feared that his prison stay may have changed him into someone she didn't know at all. Ma Joad’s speech to Tom clearly had a great deal of pity and some admiration for Floyd. She says he was treated like an animal, “They shot at him like a varmint, an’ he shot back, an’ they run him like a coyote, an’ his a-snappin’ and a-snarlin’, mean as lobo” (98). Many Oklahomans would agree with Ma joad that through all of Floyd’s criminal acts, he should be respected in his fight against the system and he should be adored for not backing down. Floyd’s reference in the book is a symbol of a fighting spirit that all of the farmers desired to protect their families.