Introduction:
East of Eden is a very strange book. It is not an allegory, nor a fantasy, nor a romance novel, nor a mystery. It has hardly any plot: there are plenty of antagonists, but no clear protagonist. The book even features a chapter that recounts several character’s bible study on a passage in Genesis. In his introduction to East of Eden, the author John Steinbeck wrote that this book is a box: “nearly everything I have is in it, and it is not full. Pain and excitement are in it, and feeling good or bad and evil thoughts and good thoughts—the pleasure of design and some despair and the indescribable joy of creation” (Forward). So the book does not really fit anywhere because it has a little bit of everything: it is a container for Steinbeck’s creation and greatest thoughts: but for all it’s variety of content, the book is not purposeless. On the contrary this box has a defined thesis on the human race’s guilt, and how we are redeemed.
Section 1: List of Characters
The majority of the plot hinges on Adam Trask’s relationship with various members of his family. Adam’s brother Charles vies for their father’s affection which is awarded to Adam alone. Destitute of his father’s love Charles becomes a vicious, cunning and miserly man. Adam’s sons Cal and Aron are twins but are more akin to Adam and Charles then they are to each other. Aron is loved by everyone and is slow and stubborn minded: Cal is disliked on account of his face, is sly witted and enjoys exploiting other’s weaknesses. Adam’s wife is a curious character: she is described as a monster (72) lacking the spiritual equivalent of an arm or both eyes: she spends her life in prostitution, attempting to turn other people into monsters as deformed and wicked as herself. Samuel Hamilton is the virtuous man, giving laughter and wisdom to his family and to Adam. Adam’s servant is a Chinese man named Lee, who is prolific, self sacrificial, and a complete devotee to truth. He delivers the book’s thesis, which we’ll get to in a jiffy.
Section 2: Cains and Abels
Since the book is a menagerie of seemingly unrelated stories, ascertaining the book’s direction requires looking at the book’s prolific use of biblical imagery. East of Eden is already a striking title, but then Adam Trask decides to "create his own Eden" for his new wife. In Adam's Eden, his wife betrays Adam and tries to kill him: which should sound like the she-devil of Jewish fan fiction: Adam’s first wife, Lilith. Samuel Hamilton is from Ireland and sets himself up in a green new land and immediately begins digging for wells, which reminds one of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: foreigners digging their wells in the fruitful land of Canaan. Samuel’s youngest son is Joseph, who is the beloved of the family which echoes the beginning of the story of the Joseph. Looking at the book’s biblical imagery reveals a system to the menagerie of stories: the stories that are central to the plot, the stories that all the other smaller stories compliment, are the stories that are reiterations of Cain and Abel. Adam and his brother both try to win their father’s affection: as Abel’s gift is received so Adam’s is; as Cain’s gift is not received, so brother Charles’ gift is rejected. Abel and Cain later walk in a field talking together, just as Charles walks with Adam late at night: Cain and Charles become enraged at their brothers and try to kill them. Charles later receives a mark which looks like “a long fingermark laid on his forehead” (47), mimicking God’s mark upon Cain after killing Abel. Adam’s relationship with his brother takes up much of the book, and his brother’s relationship is defined by Charles' attempt to kill him. Later Adam's sons embody the Cain and Abel story again: Aron the beloved son gives his father the gift of pride in his college accomplishments: Cal gives his father 15,000$, an arguably much greater gift, but it is not accepted by his father. When Adam’s son Aron is missing for a couple days, Cal replies “am I supposed to look after him” (563), which should make us immediately think of Cain’s famous retort, “am I my brother's keeper” (Genesis 4:9 )? This interaction between Cal, Aron, and Adam presents the major conflict of the book. If you're fishing around for the direction the story is moving, or why the characters are doing what they're doing, reread Genesis, and especially Cain and Abel’s account.
Section 3: Timshel
I believe the thesis of the book is located in chapter 24, simply because it not only makes the most sense of Steinbeck’s curious box, but it is also echoed in the final point he makes in the book. Chapter 24 features a bible study between the book’s big three characters: Lee the educated philosopher, Adam the (mostly) protagonist and Samuel Hamilton the virtuous. After Adam’s Lilith of a wife left him, Adam died. His body breathed and ate and slept, but his mind and soul were dead. “Now and again his mind fought its way upward, and when the light broke in it bought him only a sickness of the mind, and he retired into the grayness again” (250). Samuel brings Adam out of his deep sleep, and then commands him to name his children, whom he has treated like animals and forgotten to even name them (this should sound like the Adam’s death like sleep, and consequent naming of his family). During this great naming event, the story of Cain and Abel is brought up: Samuel solemnly declares “Two stories have haunted us and followed us from our beginning...the story of original sin, and the story of Cain and Abel” (264). True enough, but Lee ups the stakes:
"I think this is the best known story in the world because it is everybody's story. I think it is the symbol story of the human soul...the greatest fear a child can have is that he is not loved, and rejection is the hell he fears. I think everyone in the world to a large or small extent has felt rejection. And with the rejection comes anger, and with anger some kind of crime in revenge for the rejection, and with the crime guilt—and there is the story of mankind" (268).
Among man’s strongest motivations then resides the spiraling pattern of real or imaginary rejection, anger, vile acts done in anger, and then guilt—resulting in more rejection and more anger, and round and round the vicious cycle goes. So then, what can mankind do with this guilt? Steinbeck reveals another layer of the story: God tells Cain before the murder that “thou should rule over sin” (Genesis 4:7). In a later chapter Lee presents the results of his 10 year long translation study of Cain’s story.
The American Standard translation (thou should) orders men to triumph over sin, and you can call sin ignorance. The King James makes a promise in “thou shalt,” meaning that men will surely triumph over sin. But the Hebrew word, the word timshel—thou mayest—that gives a choice...that throws it right back on man....Now there are millions in churches and sects who hear ‘do thou’ and throw themselves into obedience. And there are millions more who feel predestination in ‘thou shalt’. Nothing they do can interfere with what will be. But ‘Thou mayest!’ Why that makes a man great, that gives him stature with the gods, for in his weakness and his filth and his murder of his brother he has still the great choice. He can choose his course and fight it through and win” (302).
Here is the assertion of the book: that to be human is to be chalked full of guilt and shame and evil actions. Here is the great hope of the book: that we can be free from our weakness, sin, and guilt. And, here is Lee’s thesis for how we achieve this hope: we, ourselves, by our own might are able to make ourselves better, to “fight it through and win” over Sin. Let's see if the rest of the book confirms his theory.
Section 4: Guilt Applied
I mentioned earlier that Adam’s sons Cal and Aron begin embodying the Cain and Abel story, like their father and their father’s brother. Remember too, that Cal has a natural meanness in him. After Adam’s rejection of Cal’s offering, Cal and Aron walk out late at night together. When Aron disappears after that night and people start asking Cal questions, Cal gives Cain’s reply “Am I supposed to look after him” (563)? Cal even admits he can’t stop being like his mother, because “I’ve got her in me” (445). At Cal’s lowest point, the night that Cal and Aron walked together, Cal did not murder his brother but he did maliciously provoke his brother, and Aron, because of Cal’s provoking, ran off and swore into the military. However, unlike Cain, Cal feels the burden of his guilt and repents. Lee rebukes Cal, telling him “you’re marveling at the tragic spectacle of Caleb Trask—Caleb the magnificent, the unique. Caleb who’s suffering should have its Homer. Did you ever think of yourself as a snot-nosed kid—mean, sometimes, incredibly generous sometimes” (568)? Lee’s medicine works and Cal looks at him with “just the beginning of relief” (568). Cal repents, and fights his shame: he begins to genuinely love a wise woman named Abra. But they, too, deal with guilt: near the end of the book, Abra interprets Cal’s sullenness
“ ‘You think you’ve got it all, don't you? You think you attract bad things—’
‘Well—’
‘Well I'm going to tell you something. My father’s in trouble’” (590).
Abra’s father, it turns out, was stealing money from his company. Her mother simply pretends it isn’t happening.
“ ‘You see you're not the only one—’ She looked sideways at his face. ‘Now I’m afraid’ she said weakly” (590). Abra and Cal both are in a line of generational unfaithfulness, both are, in Samuel Hamilton’s words “Cain’s children” (268).
Section 5: Redemption
Aron soon dies in the military, and dies because Cal indirectly provoked him into the military. When Adam is told of Aron’s death Adam lies stricken in bed (think of Jacob stating if his sons take his beloved Benjamin away, Jacob’s other sons will bring down “my gray hair with sorrow to the grave” [Genesis 42:38]). Cal walks out of Adam’s room stating “I killed my brother. I’m a murderer. He knows it” (595). There's the guilt: but Lee, Cal, and Abra enter the room together and approach Adam on his bed, seeking for a blessing for Cal. (Again, think of Joseph approaching Jacob on his bed looking for a blessing). Lee makes this ultimatum: “he (Cal) did a thing in anger, Adam, because he thought you had rejected him. The result is that his brother and your son is dead...Adam, give him your blessing. Don’t leave him alone with his guilt...give him his chance. Let him be free. That’s all a man has over the beasts. Free him! Bless him!’ Adam looked up with sick weariness” tries, and fails to speak. “Then his lungs filled. He expelled the air and lips combed the rushing sigh. His whispered word seemed to hang in the air: ‘Timshel!’
His eyes closed and he slept” (601).
Section 6: Bondage of the Will
So far the book seems to confirm Lee’s thesis back in his translation study: you have the ability to be either a saint or a devil and which one you are is entirely up to you. Never mind about gods, just make the choice yourself. Except for the fact that Cal has been trying to be good since childhood, but does evil anyway. After his treachery to Aron, Cal states “Why I’m mean, Lee. I don't want to be mean. Help me Lee!” (567). After hearing his mother died Cal snarls “I hope it hurt. No, I don't want to say that. I don't want to think that. There it is again. There it is! I don't—want it—like that” (567). Young Cal prays the same thing to God with tears in his eyes “Dear Lord...don’t make me mean” (377)! Yet Cal continues to be mean anyway. Nor does Cal do the right thing on his own: after Aron is dead and his father is paralyzed, Cal is ready to run from home: it takes Lee and Abra’s wills to turn him around to confront his father. So rather than attaining righteousness by his own might, Cal is more like Paul in his letter to the Romans: “For what I am doing I do not understand. For what I will to do that I do not practice but what I hate that I do.” (Romans 7:15-16). Now, remember the thesis proposed: we all live under a cycle of guilt because we feel rejected and not loved. Adam’s family history shows that well enough. Lee’s original thesis then proposes we choose to be free of guilt: timshel, or “thou mayest:” “that throws it right back on a man. For if ‘thou mayest,’ then ‘thou mayest not’ ” (300). Cal shows however that doesn’t work very well: Cal still has his mother’s blood, he is still guilty, and still mean. So Lee’s thesis needs amending.
Conclusion
It is on the second to last page that Lee has a suggestion, a suggestion that I think amends his original thesis, and therefore changes the outlook of the whole preceding book:
I thought that once an angry and disgusted God poured molten fire from a crucible to destroy or to purify his little handiwork of mud. I thought I had inherited both the scars of the fire and impurities which made the fire necessary—all inherited I thought...That isn’t good enough...Maybe you’ll come to know that every man in every generation is refired. Does a craftsman even in his old age, lose hunger to make a perfect cup—thin, strong, translucent?’ (Lee) held his cup up to the light. ‘all impurities burned out and ready for a more glorious flux, and for that—more fire. And then either the slag heap or, perhaps what no one in the world ever quite gives up, perfection...Cal, listen to me. Can you think that whatever made us—would stop trying” (598-599)?
In this paragraph, Lee has added God into the center of his original thesis. In this paragraph, God’s action is the focus not man’s: man is not master of his destiny as Lee originally proposed, but clay in the hands of the Almighty Potter. This starts to sound like definition #2 of timshel, “thou will,” where we simply will be perfected no matter what we do. But this paragraph can’t be advocating for “thou will,” because Lee a page later tells Adam to bless his son to “let him be free. That's all a man has over the beasts” (588). How could Lee value fatalism one page and the very next page value Cal’s freedom? So if not fatalism, could it be the first definition of timshel, thou shalt? It could, but Lee doesn’t mention that option, and never really gives that option much thought. So I think in this paragraph we are still dealing with the third definition of timshel, ‘thou mayest.’ Man chooses between good and evil, and thus bears responsibility for his choices and is “above the animals.” But having established man’s moral choice, Lee then couples Man’s moral choice with God’s design in everything. According to Lee, God, the master craftsman, wouldn’t lose interest in his creation: even in old age human craftsmen do not “lose hunger to make a perfect cup,” nor does any human in the world quite give up their potential for perfection. Therefore, Lee says, God the master craftsman is not an “angry and disgusted god,” arbitrarily extracting pain from his impure creation: rather, God is a master craftsman: Lee proposes God is using the fire (pain, suffering, evil) to some end, some purpose he has envisioned for His pottery. And what could God’s end goal for humanity be but what we all “cannot quite give up:” perfection. Freedom. And so Lee recognizes man’s responsibility for his own choices, and simultaneously recognizes God’s authorship of this entire story and all the characters and the plot. And when Lee finishes this thought and Lee presents Cal to Adam, the final layer to his thesis is added. How God begins to mold his clay men and women into the kind of pottery that will choose good, the kind of pottery that is free from guilt and the kind of pottery that is perfected from sin, is revealed through Adam’s ‘thou mayest.’ Freedom from the guilt cycle comes through our Father’s forgiveness of us—freedom from sin comes through His Son’s redemption.