In East of Eden by John Steinbeck, Cal is portrayed as an evil, quick witted person. His quick actions do not have any thought put into them. The extreme emotion that comes up within himself causes him to make wrong turns on two way streets. This causes several conflicts in the book. From watching Cal, I learned that instinctive acting without thought leads to destructive outcomes through his actions. When Adam states, “You’ll have to give it back,” these six words were enough to set Cal on fire (507). More so the fifteen thousand dollars he burned after he is enraged that Adam does not accept his gift. In this situation, Cal had two options. He could return the money to the farmers he “robbed,” or he could get rid of it somehow. He, out of
Notes and numbers: Both Calaveras and Escalon picked up victories to begin the season. Calaveras knocked off El Capitan 44-24 and Escalon defeated Enochs 14-10. In 2016, Calaveras defeated Escalon for the first time under head coach Jason Weatherby with a 45-16 trouncing. Since 2008, the teams have met six times with Escalon winning five of them. The average score of a Calaveras versus Escalon game is 27.3-23.5 in favor of Escalon.
In East of Eden, Cathy Ames is constructed to represent the incarnation of evil. In East of Eden, Cathy is portrayed as a corrupt adaptation of the biblical Eve, who is perceived by the Christian tradition as the mother of mankind. Although Eve is not described as evil, she is the one who invited evil in the world by accepting a suspicious apple from a dishonest snake. As a result, Eve is often associated with sin, but whereas Eve is deceived into committing sin, Cathy embraces it and commits evil simply as a means to inflict pain. The character is overly enticed with evil: she believes that there is only evil in the world and therefore fully commits herself to it.
The intentions of actions help decide whether it is morally good or evil. The man has many more blurred moral situations than the boy throughout the novel. One example of this is when he kills the “roadrat”(35), out of self-defense for his son. The man assures the boy “[they] are still the good guys”(39) even after he killed the man, because his initial intent was not to harm him. McCarthy demonstrates the idea that good gets evil and evil gets evil with the outcome of the “roadrat”. He refuses not to harm the boy and man and therefore gets killed. Although this exact situation is not the basis of the norm morality in modern society, it still helps demonstrate the triumph of good. In a regular world this intention of good can be applied to simple things, such as; a small lie in order to protect others. The novel helps demonstrate principles by using the extremes. In an apocalyptic
In East of Eden, John Steinbeck explores how the personality trait of jealousy affects an individual. He shows this through Cal Trask’s resulting transformation into a kind person and reprimanding by others for not being himself.
The Epic of Eden was written in hope that believing readers would come to an understanding of the Old Testament as their story. A way for them to understand and cross the barrier that is created by the people, places, history and context of the scriptures which can be daunting and hard to navigate. As Sandra L. Richter, who is the author of Epic of Eden, depicts the modern believer as having what is called the dysfunctional closet syndrome. What she means by this is that as believers we are given many “stories, characters, dates and place names” but we do not have a way to sort all the information, like a closet with a bunch of items but no shelves or hangers. Ritcher aims to sort out these barriers and in the course of the book and all in
Judane Carigma Open-ended Prompt Essay 2016 Many works of literature contain a character who intentionally deceives others. The character’s dishonesty may be intended either to help or to hurt. Such a character, for example, may choose to mislead others for personal safety, to spare someone’s feelings, or to carry out a crime. Choose a novel or play in which a character deceives others.
Cal Trask is the most prominent Cain like figure because he has always been the twin who was looked down upon and he causes his brothers death with an act of jealousy exactly like Cain did to Abel. When Adam says,”You’ll have to give it back” Cal is torn apart and in a state of jealousy and hatred towards his brother(Steinbeck 540). He knows that Aron is the preferred twin and this really makes him upset. This exact thing happens in the bible when Abel’s gift is the one God likes more of the two. This builds up jealousy in Cain and pushes him to the point where he murders Abel. Also when Cal says,”Oh, it’s
Caliban, a very misunderstood character, while he may seem to be the monster on the outside. He isn’t who he appears to be. He is simply a product of his environment. Before Prospero showed up the island was his, Caliban’s mother had left him the island, but now he is only a slave to Prospero, who tortures him. So it sounds to me that Caliban isn’t in fact the monster, and the monster may actually be the person that you didn’t expect it to be.
Where Aron was received, Cal was rebuffed for doing or saying exactly the same thing.” (444) Since the time Cal and Aron were born, Adam was so destroyed from his wife Cathy’s departure, that he did not even bother to name Aron and Cal until they were well over a year old. This is definitely a source of the conflict between Cal and Adam because he was never genuinely dedicated to taking care of his children in the first place. When Adam finally got over Cathy and began caring for his children, Aron was undoubtedly his favorite, which is shown in multiple various sections of the story. After Adam discovers that Aron is graduating early, he says, “I’m proud of him. Terribly proud. This makes me feel good. I wish Cal had some ambition.” (488) While the main source of their conflict may have been Cal’s early childhood, it continues to worsen with every encounter Adam and Cal have. Adam is so focused on Aron that he does not realize everything Cal is doing for him, as well as Aron. Cal originally suggested that Aron graduate a year early and even payed for his tuition with the help of Lee. Furthermore, Cal felt sorry for Adam after losing all but $9000 of his fortune in his unsuccessful business attempt, and earned $15,000 to
It is then, when Caleb plans to give Adam 15,000 dollars that he made by investing in bean business. Caleb hopes that this money will make up for a great loss of money that Adam suffered when a plan to send lettuce to the east coast in refrigerated train cars failed. Adam rejects Caleb’s money, following the pattern of God rejecting or rather neglecting Cain’s gift as Cyrus ignoring Charles’ knife. On the other hand, it seems that Aron does not give their father any apparent gift, although many scholars, for instance David McCright argues that Aron’s gift “is a subtle one. He simply returns home from college for Thanksgiving and he is warmly received” (McCright 24). This time, Steinbeck let the readers know the most information about the gift that Caleb plans to give Adam. In the first offering, we only knew about it thanks to Charles and his memories of it, but this is different, the readers can actually see how much thought Caleb gave to it. He talks about making the money with Samuel’s son, Will Hamilton, who is also very clever and business-oriented man. Will asks him why he wants to make that money and give it to his father and he directly asks him if he wants to buy Adam’s love, to which Caleb replies that yes, he wants (East of Eden
Throughout East of Eden, Steinbeck illustrates the complexity of morality through many characters’ struggles with the idea that they can choose their own destiny. This is most obvious with Cal, but Lee demonstrates the maturity to think clearly about his place in the world and his former mistaken viewpoints. Through Lee, Steinbeck argues that individuals have the power and obligation to choose their own destiny, no matter how difficult and harrowing their past was. Steinbeck argues that individuals have a responsibility to seek out truth and clarity, even though they can just as easily choose to live in ignorance. After Samuel’s death, Lee says that the world went out “like a candle,” describing the sudden lack of clarity in his thoughts and emotions.
The second example of ignorance leading into destruction is "I didn't want to kill them all. I didn't want to kill anybody! I'm not a killer! You didn't want me, you bastards, you wanted Peter, but you made me do it, you tricked me into it!" He was crying.
He should have paid more attention to his instincts. This example shows us that Caesar was excellent at what he did; however, he had a big problem, which held him back.
Charles, throughout his time in the novel, rages with jealousy from the acceptance and love he sees his father give Adam while all Charles receives is contempt and rejection. An example of Charles’ rejection of parental love can be seen in the birthday gifts the brothers gave to their father, Cyrus. While Charles spent six bits on a pearl-handled German knife for his father that Cyrus never ended up using, Adam gave him a free mongrel pup from a woodlot as a present and, “That dog sleeps in [Cyrus’] room. He plays with it while he’s reading. He’s got it all trained.” (Steinbeck Chapter 3) This shows how just like Cain, Charles’ gift was disrespected in the eyes of the Lord, or in this case, his father Cyrus, while just like Abel, Adam’s gift was respected and appreciated. Charles is consistently vying for his father’s love, only to be rejected by his father, and sees Cyrus give love and attention to Adam. He watches as Cyrus pressures Adam to join the army and give Adam long talks on private walks. Charles takes out his revenge due to his parental rejection on his brother, as, “If [Cyrus] liked [the knife] [Charles] wouldn’t have taken it out after [Adam].” (Chapter 3) Cal struggled with the same parental rejection in his own family with his twin brother Aron and his father Adam. Cal was made to feel as if he was "no good" by his father Adam. Thus, the same circumstance
1) What are the key ethical issues in this scenario? Being tardy, even though overlooked by some, is an ethical issue. Steven is acting unethically to the manager and his coworkers by being late with everything. He also is aware of his tardiness and proceeds to continue this behavior. His unethical behavior is affecting everyone in the office, and it sounds like this has been going on for awhile.