Hope and optimism versus reality

Multiple times throughout the book, the Joads meet up with people who have already been to California and are returning, knowing that there is nothing there for them. First when they've paid to spend the night at one camp, a man tells them of how difficult it is to get jobs, and how he has lost his family. But even before he tells them this he says he doesn't want to worry them, and after he's told it he says, "I says I wasn't gonna fret ya, an' here I'm a-doin' it. You gonna go on. You ain't goin' back" (259). Later when they first arrive in California they meet another man returning, and after he tells them how it's impossible to make a living out there, he regrets it, saying, "I shouldn' of did that... Fella always wants to be a wise guy, wants to tell folks stuff" (283).

People understood that there was a need for hope and optimism during that time. They wanted to warn the families going to California, but at the same time they understood it would do no good and they should not do it. The families leaving the dust bowl areas had nothing to return to, so they had turned to California as their last hope, and men returning could not stomp out that hope.  Each man regretted telling the family that there was nothing ahead of them because they wanted to preserve the other families feelings of optimism a bit longer. They all understood that this hope was the only thing keeping the other families going, that without it they had absolutely nothing.

I wonder what will happen once they reach the part of California they are heading toward and this optimism is taken away. What will they do when they realize there is nothing? How will they cope when they have no hope at all and nothing to look forward to?