In John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath, what is inside Jim Rawley's heart? What is most important to him?

In Chapter Twenty-One of John Steinbeck’s novel
The Grapes of Wrath, Jim Rawley manages a federally funded camp
where the Joads stop and stay for a while during their Depression-era trek across the
country. Rawley stops by to introduce himself and make sure that the Joads have
everything they need.

Ma Joad is at first suspicious of
Rawley’s apparent kindness. Rawley explains that he was sleeping when the Joads arrived
the night before. He is glad that the camp had a place for them to stay. Ma soon begins
to trust him. When she asks him if he is the “boss” of the camp, he replies that no boss
is necessary because the people who live in the camp are hard-working and creative
without being forced to behave in those ways.

When Ma
indicates that she feels unclean because she and her family have been traveling, Rawley
says that he knows how she feels. He also immediately, and shrewdly, changes the
subject, praising the smell of the coffee Ma is brewing and implying that he might like
a cup. He thereby gives Ma an opportunity to show what she can do for him rather than
allowing her to dwell on thoughts of what the camp is doing for her and her family. In
other words, Rawley gives Ma a chance to feel renewed self-respect. Indeed, when
inviting him to share breakfast with them, Ma says,

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“We’d be proud to have ya . . . We ain’t got much
that’s nice, but you’re
welcome.”

Rawley now shows
his thoughtfulness once more. Rather than consuming any of the family’s food, he
explains that he has already had his breakfast, and so he merely takes a cup of
coffee.

When Ma ponders his motives, she sees “nothing but
friendliness.” He is so consistently kind, in fact, that Ma feels like crying as he
leaves.

Rawley, then, seems to be motivated chiefly by
friendship, concern, compassion, and respect for other human beings. In all these ways,
he differs from a number of the other characters in the novel, especially some of those
with money and power and authority. Indeed, the fact that Rawley is
a sort of authority figure makes his genuine kindness all the more remarkable and
impressive.  Rather than abusing his authority, or showing off, or lording it over the
people who come to him in need, he treats them with the sort of camaraderie that
Steinbeck felt was the basis of any truly civil and progressive
society.

Somehow this question was originally
placed in the wrong category (dealing with Margaret Truman'sThe President's
House), which does not seem to have a character named Jim Rawley.  Searches
of the internet revealed, however, that Rawley is a notable
character in John Steinbeck's famous novelThe Grapes of Wrath. I
have already answered the question in connection with Steinbeck (see link below), but
allow me to elaborate upon that answer here.

Rawley seems
to represent the ideal government bureaucrat as imagined during the "New Deal" -- a
series of programs formulated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to help Americans cope
with the Great Depression of the 1930s. Rawley, then, is just one of many ways in which
Steinbeck tries to make a case, in his novel, for the New Deal. In that sense, Rawley is
an "occasional" figure in the novel -- a figure designed, in large part, to be relevant
to the particular time period of the literary work. Rather than being a "universal"
figure in the way that Ma Joad is (she is almost a living, breathing emobodiment of the
Strong Mother archetype), Rawley seems designed to show that government bureaucrats can
be (and should
be):

• thoughtful


• kind


• compassionate


• respectful


• hard-working


• modest


• generous


• and
  never over-bearing

However, it is also possible
to see Rawley as an example of varios other archetypal figures who regularly appear in
literatture, including

• the good
  neighbor


• the decent
  boss


• the thoughtful
  friend


• the generous and helpful
  stranger

Rawley typifies all these positive
traits and archtypes when he says, for instance,

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"I'm Jim Rawley. I'm camp manager. Just dropped
by to see if everything's all right. Got everything you
need?"

Most of us, of course,
would be very thankful to have persons like Jim Rawley in our lives, and so it is no
surprise that Ma is grateful to meet him.