East of Eden

"When a child first catches adults out – when it first walks into his grave little head that adults do not have divine intelligence, that their judgments are not always wise, their thinking true, their sentences just – his world falls into panic desolation. The gods are fallen and all safety gone. And there is one sure thing about the fall of gods: they do not fall a little; they crash and shatter or sink deeply into green muck. It is a tedious job to build them up again; they never quite shine. And the child's world is never quite whole again. It is an aching kind of growing." (20)

This reminds me of a quote by Oscar Wilde, "Children begin by loving their parents. After a time they judge them. Rarely, if ever, do they forgive them." Part of growing up is having your worldview shattered – one day, you will realize you are no longer in the center of the world, and that life is hard, and you can't have things go your way. East of Eden captures this very well, the naivete that parents are these people that know everything and are perfect. Once you find a fallacy, which is inevitable, you lose that foundation, parents are one of the pillars of childhood – where you get that reliable sense of security. With that reliability gone, it's painful because that's when you have to learn to stand up for yourself. Parents can't make decisions for you anymore, because they don't know what's best for you. And you don't know what's best for you either. So it's scary, and it's painful.

“An ache was on the top of his stomach, an apprehension that was like a sick thought. It was a Weltschmerz – which we used to call 'Welshrats' – the world sadness that rises into the soul like a gas and spreads despair so that you probe for the offending event and can find none.” (175)

This is a very unique emotion that I've never seen any other book describe. Yes. Weltschmerz. Sometimes, after an interaction with someone, or after doing something, I look up and I feel this sadness. It might be a sunny day, but the sun has lost its luster, and the houses in the neighborhood look ugly, grotesque even. Something isn't quite right, and I feel sad. Like there's no point to anything. But the core of this emotion is just like how Steinbeck describes it – there's no apparent reason why you feel that way. It kind of appears, moves through you, and then, before you know it, it's gone, and everything is alright again. It's really a hard emotion to describe, or to even understand. So it shows the skill of Steinbeck as a writer, being able to encompass so much of human nature and human emotion.

"But thou mayst! 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" (301)

This is a high point in the book. The book deals with a lot of themes, but one of the biggest themes, and the theme that the book closes on, is that of human free will. In class, we had a discussion about free will: how the army takes away free will. Adam joined the army later, voluntarily (51), and he did "rot" in the barracks. Adam wanted to escape from his problems, his life, his brother, but the army was definitely not the solution. This also goes with Aron, he enlisted into the army after he found out about his mother because it broke his worldview, the story he wanted to write. So free will is kind of a privilege. You have to learn how to wield it. And you can't wield it perfectly. But the good thing is, you always have a choice. You will inevitably sin, but that doesn't mean you can't "fight through it and win". There will always be more opportunities. Of course, that is also a bit of a generalization, but the point is, most of the time, your mistakes don't define you. You define yourself. And that then ties to identity, and how people form their identities. So, this is truly a high point in the book, the theme of choice is so deeply connected with human nature, and there is just so much to write and discuss about. Timshel!

"He couldn't stand to know about his mother because that's not how he wanted the story to go – and he wouldn't have any other story. So he tore up the world. It's the same way he tore me up – Abra – when he wanted to be a priest." (576)

Making up reality is a recurring theme in this book. Cathy is a prime example. Mr. Edwards, for example, never saw past Cathy other than a beautiful girl. So, after drinking alcohol, and finding out the truth, he tries to kill her. Adam, when he marries Cathy, doesn't really marry Cathy, but rather the Cathy in Adam's mind. For example, he doesn't ever listen to her when she says she doesn't want to move to California. He also doesn't notice Cathy's lack of interest in the property they buy. Making up dreams is human nature. Everyone does it. But, the problem is when it becomes reality. One recurring theme is trying to escape reality – either by enlisting in the army or making up truths. It's always ended up being that reality catches up with the character, and it breaks them. Those who can't accept reality can't change reality. It's easy to escape, but that's only temporary solace. The only true solution is to try to fight reality, and change it. Which is much harder, and isn't always possible.

"Does a craftsman, even in his old age, lose his hunger to make a perfect cup – thin, strong, translucent?" (598)

This is a very thought provoking question. It's a common saying that perfection can't be reached, we can only strive for it. But it's interesting to project that onto humanity as a whole. We are constantly improving, every generation builds from the knowledge of the previous generation, and we are able to keep making technological advancements. And so when you tie that back into choice, free will in this context makes a lot of sense. You can't wield free will perfectly every time, but, like the craftsman, you never stop trying, never stop making decisions, in the hope that eventually, you'll make the perfect decision, whatever that may mean.

"Whatever you do, it will be you who do it – not your mother." (445)

This is pretty much the central message of the entire book. The book has already dealt with themes like free will and the nature vs nurture debate. And in this sentence, Lee is able to connect both of them. There never was a nature vs nurture debate. Because if you were to buy into people behaving because they were born that way, it would be like the King James translation of the bible – "Thou shalt" (301). You will inevitably make those decisions, and it is predetermined by fate. On the other hand, if you were to believe that you came from nurture, that is a parallel to the American Standard translation – that you were "ordered" by your parents to behave the way you behave. So, if you behaved badly, that was because you had bad parenting, and your parents should also be blamed. But, Steinbeck rejects both of these theories. And instead, he argues that it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if you had bad parents, or were born to an evil parent (Cathy). Whatever action you take, it's your responsibility. You can't blame your actions on your nature, or your nurture. You can only blame yourself. This is where the Hebrew word timshel comes in: Thou mayst. You could overcome your past, or you can't. Either way, it's ultimately your choice. Nothing is forever, and you can break the cycle.

Wow. What a book. When I first started reading this book, I didn't expect much. I didn't really pay much attention to the first few sentences. But, after reading for a bit, I don't know why, but the book just drew me in. I thought to myself, "wow, I need to give this book my undivided attention". So, I took a break until I was much more focused, and I spent the next three hours reading up to chapter 15. The book just "pulls you along", and what really worked for me was searching every quote up that I thought was interesting. What I mean by this is, whenever there was something in the book I didn't quite understand, or made me think, I would type that quote into google, and see what others had to say about it. Eventually, this led me to find a reddit book club that happened to have read East of Eden last year. This turned into a system where I would read a chapter, and then look at what others had to say about the chapter, and I would take notes accordingly. This method was extremely helpful for getting the most out of this book. It isn't dense, per say, but there are a lot of ideas being dealt with, and it's easy to overlook them. It's also easy to be overwhelmed and just "clock out". I might have done that near the end of the book, because I felt that Steinbeck kind of lost steam at the end. The chapters weren't as deep as I hoped they would be, and it felt a bit cliche, and uninspiring. But, that might be just a weakness of this kind of book. When you set up the book so that it would try to encompass as much of human nature as possible, it's really easy to draw the reader in at the beginning. Steinbeck does a great job of character building, and making the characters come alive. The only problem is, there's so many characters. How can an ending possibly encompass them all? It might just be impossible to create an ending that successfully resolves everything the book has to offer – an ending is one idea, and the book has multiple ideas that aren't related. East of Eden is unlike any other assignment in AP Lang. For starters, it is a work of fiction. In a class that mainly deals with short non-fiction articles, a 600 page fiction book is definitely not something to be expected. But I don't think that's the point. Reading East of Eden won't make you a better writer, or teach you rhetorical techniques. But it also can – the sheer volume of text will make you want to analyze it. And Steinbeck's prose is very unique and beautiful. By reading good prose, you naturally become a better writer. Still, East of Eden is a more philosophical book. Steinbeck was able to weave the story of his own family with a fictional family. East of Eden was originally dedicated to his sons, and Steinbeck's original purpose of the book was to tell his sons about the stories of his family, as well as teaching them everything he knew, about writing, about life. So, when you read the book in that perspective, East of Eden is meant to make you think. Steinbeck wrote this when he was much older than I am. It's kind of like having an adult sit you down and have a conversation with you about their own regrets in life. And not a short conversation where "living in the moment" comes up. A long conversation, where the adult really tries to reflect on their life, and show everything that the human experience has to offer. And when you have that conversation, you mature. You become a better person as a result. Speaking of the plot of the story itself, it's brutal. Steinbeck sometimes drops the most horrifying things from the depths of human nature. And some chapters really did ruin my day, and I really didn't want to keep reading. But the good thing about Steinbeck is he understands how readers would read his work. After deep emotional chapters, he often has a humorous one – for example the chapter about the Trask family getting a car after the devastating previous chapter. And I also liked the character Lee. It's really interesting that Steinbeck put a Chinese in the story, but even more so the attention he gave to him. The biggest detail was when Lee cut off his queue. He says, "We all did. Haven't you heard? The Dowager Empress is gone. China is free." (292) That's a really specific detail from Chinese history, when the Qing dynasty was toppled, its mark of authority, the queue haircut was abolished. So it just adds to the detail of the story. But one thing that the book really reminds me of is rejection. Obviously everyone gets rejected, especially in terms of college applications. And this book is really useful for learning how to get over rejection. Sometimes, such as in Cain and Abel, someone gets rejected for no other reason than the person didn't like it. God just didn't like wheat as much as he did lamb. No problem in that, and Cain should just accept that it will be unfair – there's only one thing God can like, he can't like both things. Cain isn't inferior, he just didn't find the "right audience". East of Eden is a truly powerful and unique book, and I can see why Steinbeck would consider it his magnum opus. There's so much in the book to unpack, and so many new ideas to ponder about. Reading it has truly changed me, I have new words to describe my feelings.