East Of Eden.pdf
This passage examines interactions between Charles and Adam, and their brotherly (or not so brotherly) treatment of each other. Charles seems initially cordial, volunteering to go on a walk with Adam. Steinbeck doesn't utilize a subtle style of writing, using specific words such as "demanded", "suspiciously" and more to describe how Charles speaks. The scene sets the semi-violent theme of the book, as well as confirming Charles’s character. He’s constantly irritated, constantly on the edge. Furthermore, it develops the character of Cyrus. He has a clue of what will happen, and also knows himself to favor Adam. As frequently displayed in the book, there’s a relatively clear good and bad. Charles, if anything, contrasts Adam slightly later in the book. Adam is antsy to leave, always antagonizing. Charles, on the other hand, is the rock, and constant. The cycle continues with the children of Adam (& Charles), constantly at war with each other. The scene represents one of the primary conflicts of the novel. It’s one of the more intense scenes in the novel, comparable to scenes surrounding Cathy/Kathy and her acts of violence.
This scene encompasses the meeting of Cathy, Charles, and Adam. This, too, forms to be one of the major conflicts in the book. Charles and Adam were never at peace, and Cathy provides the perfect opportunity for Adam to flee to California, and thus free himself from his proximity to Charles, as well as the farm. It also develop’s Adam’s character. He immediately suspects jealousy from Charles, which in of itself is proof of either insecurity or foolishness. That being said, it gives proof too of one of Charles’s biggest weaknesses: his emotions. Rather than discussing the topic of Cathy logically with Adam, he calls her a “two bit whore” and an “alley cat” (Steinbeck 96). Charles and Adam have an interesting relationship, to say the least. The previously discussed scene seems to be fueled by hatred, Charles’s jealousy of Adam’s relationship with their father. This one has Charles seeming to have genuine concern for Adam, saying “She’ll destroy you Adam, she’ll destroy you!” (Steinbeck 96). Despite these warnings, Charles does nothing to stop Cathy from sleeping with him, and even has sex with Cathy. This contributes to Adam’s destruction, as Cathy eventually reveals the true father of one of the boys. Further, the two boys reflect the two fathers in actions, forming parallelism.
Kate seems to be a typical girl in all appearances. Faye has little reason to suspect anything of her, besides possibly her mysterious past–which is rather typical in the business. Charles relies on strength, especially as a defense mechanism when his emotions are assaulted. Kate, on the other hand, utilizes emotional manipulation has her attack and defense. However, she’s vulnerable to substances that inhibit her emotionally. Faye, as with her parents, and many others that she’s encountered, has been nothing but kind to her. Despite this, Kate feels little for her, especially lacking compassion. The conversation floats from, “To my mother” (Steinbeck 177) to “Get it in under your corset, Mother, against your fat stomach” (Steinbeck 179). She turns to a hateful being. This passage, and various other ones where she’s under the influence, make it hard for me to stand by my wonderings if Kate is not entirely a hateful being. While many of her actions are those of self preservation, or helping herself (even at the hurt of others), this scene and others display her to be a simply hateful person, one who feels not only nothing for others, but an active hatred. Steinbeck occasionally speaks of monsters, who are not only inhuman, but human hating in scenes like this. However, I still question this. Adam describes in her eyes a “weariness” when she shot him, rather than a fear or a hatred. Further, when Adam goes to speak to her, although sober, she becomes snappy and aggressive to those around her, clearly emotionally impacted by the subject of him. Furthermore, she consumes alcohol once again, knowing what it will do to her. She positioned a gun near her, yet didn’t shoot him. For all the hate in her, she was not violent this time.
Understanding this, and prior passages in the context of the novel, and everything that happened in it was rather difficult. The very beginning of it is not overwhelmingly positive, and perhaps sets the tone of the chapters. The green turns to yellow, and the heads of the oats hang heavy. And so, after the first paragraph or so, the chapter seems to be happy. Tom labors well, enjoyably, and Dessie is in good appearances. A hint of the death appears in “a little crick” (Steinbeck 308), but that seems to be all. Their conversation of the future is perhaps a bit too happy, reminiscent of Adam’s talks of California. Tom becomes mournful for little reason, and Dessie’s death comes fast. It’s a cruel twist Steinbeck built, where Tom kills the only person he loves. Tom’s death soon follows. The chapter is a mournful one, reflective of its introduction, where life turns to death. It contrasts other appearances of siblings in the story. Cain and Abel, Adam and Charles, Cal and Aron, within each relationship one fought with murder in mind, fueled by spite or jealousy. Tom took the life of Dessie through love.
Firstly, I was a tad confused when writing this. Is it supposed to just be one quote, as in one or two sentences? I often see passages as longer lengths of text, multiple paragraphs or a chapter. I opted a chapter.
“Eructation” is a funny word to use accompanying morality. Purity ushered in through an informal act makes me question just how pure it may be. It’s followed by several truly horrific sins, and imagery of papers caught afire, the town ablaze in uproar against these heresies. Steinbeck’s language is rather amusing, contrasting the morbidity of many other passages within the novel.The third paragraph, especially, holds a relatively whimsical sense about it, what with “the town relaxed in its new spotlessness” (Steinbeck 345) (only a facade of spotlessness), and “What followed was carefully pro-duced as a ballet” (Steinbeck 345). Even following this, as Adam berates Cal, I can’t help but not feel so taken aback. He berates him as a typical father might a child, and such an unremarkable scene is almost comforting as I read. The following dialogue continues on the same note, with Adam expressing kindness. Valuably noted within the dialogue is Samuel’s imprint upon Adam, and the reason Adam came to be a genuine father rather than a father only in genetics. Skipping forward a tad, the way Steinbeck narrates Cal’s thoughts is fun to look at: “He felt the delicate change of balance as when a seesaw moves. His was the upper seat now. Although her expression had not changed Cal knew she was on the defensive.” (Steinbeck 352). His thoughts run almost as if he’s a predator. He’s also one of the few who has managed to gain an upper hand on her when she’s not intoxicated, and I’m reminded that she is his mother. Steinbeck doesn’t take long to remind the reader once more, what with Kate saying “the light hurts my eyes” (Steinbeck 354), reminiscent of the birth scene. Steinbeck hosts an almost Manichean scene, a boy raised to love and a woman living a life of hatred. Cal’s resistance is significant, breaking the circle told over and over again. He thinks horrible thoughts, and yet is no Kate. Finally, Cal states, “I don’t think the light hurts your eyes. I think you’re afraid” (Steinbeck 356). All the power Kate holds is gone, because her power lies within illusion. So much of the novel is about what is known versus what is hidden behind a facade. Kathy was the primary antagonist against everyone for much of the book, and she even seeped into Cal and Aron, and their views of the world. I selected this passage to be the embodiment of the book, as it recognizes and breaks the repetition present. Hatred, spite, Kathy, the monster of a boy Cal could have been, are all concluded in my eyes. Beyond that, it leaves a positive taste on my tongue–which admittedly does bias me slightly to enjoy and elevate this chapter a bit.
This chapter is a nice conclusion of some things, and a nice change in my eyes. Once again, a sibling betrays a sibling. In this case, Cal, the descendant of Charles, pairs with Abra, similar to Kate and Charles. However, in this situation, Aron (stemming from Adam) dies. Charles made it quite clear that he hated Kate, and it can only be assumed that Kate had some hatred for him–as she does with most people. However, Steinbeck writes,
‘No, Cal, but you hate me a little. Why is that?’
‘I—I’m afraid of you.’” (Steinbeck 443).
It’s an odd conversation that Abra and Cal hold, although one can only assume that hatred is no piece of it. Cal loves Aron, and Abra loves Cal, and there is no hatred to be found anywhere. Abra’s feelings for Aron may have faded, but hatred is not present. It may not be the good ending, but it’s a better ending than what came of Adam and Charles, who distanced themselves with few loving feelings between each other. Although it’s an odd passage, it seemed almost to break the circle and conclude Adam and Charles’s issues.
Firstly, I thought this book was quite good. I was relatively worried, honestly, starting out. I thought I was about to face 500 pages of imagery, discussing the beauty of the valley, but I was quite happy with how it turned out. For instance, I’ll probably be more open to reading books that have this multithreading aspect (i.e., developing multiple concurrent stories for a common task, purpose, or main storyline). I had read books like that before, but I really quite liked how this one performed. At points, I wasn’t so sure the stories would come together, but they did weave in and out, together and apart, and that was quite enjoyable. Too, the storyline was simply more interesting than I had initially expected. I had thought it would simply be a timeline of Adam’s life, going from his childhood, to his inevitably stark time in the military, to his surely lonely death. While it did contain all of those things, it weaved into other people, and threw curves and interesting material that gave me food for thought. If anything, I simply thought it would be more boring. It had all the lovely things including murder, scandal, digging for meteorite, and more.
Kate was sufficient in her role, and relatively interesting. She moved around, murdered, and moved around some more, and murdered some more. I quite like how they played her in with Adam and Charles, as well as everyone else. All of her little backstories were a fun read, especially the passages early in the book regarding her relationship with Mr. Edwards. If anything, I wish she was just a tad bit deeper. Steinbeck explains and refers to monsters several times, but there’s something rather unsatisfying about evil incarnate. She was motivated by what? She said cruel things, but did she hate people? She did horrible things, but was she inherently a violent person? Or did she simply have such a disregard for human life that violent acts were as natural as taking a breath? I did appreciate the addition of a critical flaw, though. It was rather odd that her power lay within emotional manipulation, but in the end she was a victim of her own mind, vulnerable to alcohol, or occasionally simply people conversing with her. It seemed to me at first that there was a strong battle between good and evil, what with her seeming so evil, but continuously I questioned just how evil she was.
Other characters had flaws. Adam was perhaps the most perfect, eventually becoming a somewhat suitable father to his children, and assumedly loving them. This is all after he refuses to get over Kate for a rather long time, but that’s how it is sometimes, can’t blame the man. Charles had his fair share of flaws, as did everyone in the book. Lee seemed a perfectly suitable character, and it would have been lovely to know even more about him than we already did. I saw the book to have heavy themes of breaking familial patterns. Steinbeck ran similar stories with Cain & Abel, Charles & Adam, Cal & Aron. When it got to Cal and Aron, it’s true that they didn’t exactly get the perfect ending. However, things were better than they could have been, and the relationship didn’t end in spite and bitterness. They certainly had issues with each other, but at least didn’t kill each other, which was quite sweet of them.
Steinbeck had a strong style of narration, and his story building was powerful. Things always seemed to come back around, and wrap in a way that felt satisfying to me as the reader. I didn’t think it was difficult a read, in terms of language. If anything, the worst thing for me was having time to read it. I got ahead pretty solidly with the first half of the book, but past that got a bit rough, considering I was weeks behind in almost all of my classes, and my calculus teacher decided to finalize grades two weeks earlier than I thought he would. It was fun to find specific passages and analyze them, and wasn’t a particularly easy activity considering just how long this book was. I opted to analyze slightly longer portions of text, analyzing specific text and language at points in them. All in all, it was enjoyable, but this book came at a bad time for me. I’ll probably reread it when I’m old and bored.