East of Eden

One of my all-time favorites, by John Steinbeck. I’ve probably read it five or six times over the last thirty years, starting in my high school Modern Novel class, where we also watched the mini-series starring Jane Seymour (the start of my love affair with her).


Each time I read East of Eden it’s like reading it for the first time. The book continues to surprise me with its depth and descriptiveness. The characters are multi-dimensional and lifelike – bad people aren’t completely evil and nice people are not completely good – although some people would cast the main antagonist, Cathy/Kate, as pure evil. I prefer to think of her as a sociopath, though: probably not truly evil, but rather a person who is missing something in her, through some combination of her genes and her upbringing. Steinbeck seems to feel the same way about her. When Kate finally realizes she’s missing something, she ends her life rather than feeling like something less than human.

What can be said about this classic novel that hasn’t already been said? It’s a retelling of the Cain and Abel story, over two generations, first with brothers Charles and Adam Trask, and then with Adam’s sons Caleb (Cal) and Aron. Many themes mirror the biblical account: just like Cain is a “worker of the ground”, so Charles is a hard-working farmer and Cal becomes an investor in bean crops; Abel is a “keeper of the sheep”, while Aron goes to school to become a priest (commonly compared to shepherds); God rejects Cain’s gift, but accepts Abel’s, while Charles’ and Adam’s father, Cyrus, accepts Adam’s gift of a puppy but rejects Charles’ gift of a hard-earned expensive knife; also, Cain kills Abel, while Charles attempts to kill Adam and Cal’s treatment of his brother leads to Aron entering WWI and getting killed.

The primary theme of East of Eden, however, is that the vast majority of us have the choice to be good or bad. Adam, his cook Lee, and their neighbor Samuel Hamilton extensively discuss what the moral of the Cain and Abel story is and it is eventually arrived at by some of Lee’s philosopher relatives that the moral comes down to the Hebrew word “Timshel” in the Bible, which means “thou mayest”, as in “thou mayest rule over sin.” This gives us control over our actions, rather than fate or an order to obey. Timshel recurs throughout the book, and plays particular importance at the end.

Some find East of Eden to be depressing, but I find it quite uplifting, regardless of many of the events that occur. Ultimately it is about making good choices and forgiveness - things that most of us would agree are of utmost importance to being a good person.