Reverend Casy is a martyr, he's basically killed because of his beliefs. When we think long and hard about this preacher's life – how he disappeared from Sallisaw for a while and wandered around, how he loves people and being among people so much – we realize that he reminds us of someone. He reminds us of another martyr who wandered in a wilderness for a while, developing his own philosophy, and who loved people so much. He reminds us of Jesus Christ. Jim Casy even happens to share the same initials as Jesus Christ – J.C.
Tom Joad encounters Casy on his way home from jail. Casy sits under a tree and talks on and on about all of the times he slept with women when he was a practising preacher. He has some serious guilt about this, and this guilt does not go away. At the same time, however, Casy is drawn to life and to the people who live life. While he was a preacher, Casy was put on a pedestal and was distanced from the people around him. He doesn't want to be isolated from mankind ever again. It's too lonely and too unnatural. Casy has realized that being with people what life is all about.
Though this isn't quite how i would like to play Casy, i believe that this is a very relevent way of interpreting this character. To me Casy's role in this novel isn't so much about him having how he was a preacher, to me Casy is a clever man but not in an academic way, Jim Casy is clever-i believe- because he listens and takes in every word that is said by everyone some times from up close and sometimes from afar, he then will then sit around and mull what is said so that when he gives an opinion it is relevant and poinient, Casy doesn't speak for the sake of it, he speaks when he feels he has a point worth speaking about; which is why many of his lines are long and deep, because he doesn't believe in small talk and general conversation!
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