East of Eden Essay

In East of Eden, John Steinbeck reinforces the theme of timshel—”thou mayest”—by paradoxically showing how characters fail to face their fates. These characters are seemingly preordained to follow a certain path as they each fall prey to fate. With every darkening failure in the story, there becomes a brighter hope that someone will break the cycle of sin by choosing to live freely. Charles and Adam Trask are unmistakably bound to the story of Cain and Abel. Through their names and their actions

can cause extreme feelings of jealousy, which can create a catastrophe. The biblical story of Cain and Abel shows this when Cain’s jealousy brings him to slaughter his brother and his loss of control ends with deadly consequences. In his novel, East of Eden, John Steinbeck retells the story of Cain and Abel through the relationships between Charles and Adam, as well as through Cal and Aron. Charles’ obsessive jealousy over his brother ultimately causes him to try to kill him, and Cal’s overwhelming

Throughout John Steinbeck’s East of Eden, a common theme is the character’s internal battle between choosing the path of good over the path of evil. Primarily, the evil trait applies to the characters whose names begin with ‘C’, as a homage to Cain, and Cal is no exception. His naturally evil nature causes him to develop feelings of hatred toward himself, because he fears that he will end up making the wrong decisions. However, he does seem fond of Aron and tends to put him first to show his compassion

concept of Timshel, which has an outstanding and maybe the most prominent role in East of Eden. It is Steinbeck’s message to his readers, and he tried to deliver it in a very interesting way as it is the last word the main character Adam says on his deathbed. David Stewart McCright in his thesis East of Eden: Steinbeck’s proclamation of human greatness suggests a very interesting role that Timshel has in East of Eden. He says that this was for the first time in Steinbeck’s books, that the theme of

choice for the path of good or evil. In the song, “Timshel”, Mumford and Son’s creates allusions between their song and the novel, East of Eden. In “Timshel”, there is a lyric that says, “And you have your choices and these are what make man great”, which implies that in one’s life, they have the opportunity to pick their own path(14-15). This is related to Cal, in East of Eden, when Lee preaches to him about him being able to turn his life around. Timshel is also a great idea because people whose future

In East of Eden, John Steinbeck explores how the personality trait of purity affects an individual. He shows this through Aron’s resulting ignorance and pursuit of a delusional reality. Aron’s purity eventually leads to his ignorance about many ideas that concern him. Aron and Cal’s argument about who shot a rabbit turns into an argument about Aron’s supposed cowardice and dishonesty. Cal tricks Aron into admitting defeat, and the narrator then uses the opportunity to quickly describe Aron’s seemingly

the story, Adam is no longer the pure and innocent Abel figure. When Adam tells Charles about his time spent in prison, Charles “felt warmth for his brother you can only feel for one who is not perfect and therefore no target for your hatred” (East of Eden 144). Leatham claims that at this point in the novel, the standard interpretation of Cain and Abel breaks down, and “so do[es] the dualism that separated Charles and Adam and the arbitrary and false divisions humans in general draw in order to

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

when placed in certain situations, one comes to realizations about themself. Similarly, in a work of literature an author incorporates a self-realization for a character through their struggles which gives insight into the theme. In his novel East of Eden, John Steinbeck introduces the moral struggle surrounding “timshel” to convey his theme regarding freedom. In the story, Cal Trask, the protagonist, struggles to contain his internal conflicts. Through the application of “timshel”, Steinbeck reveals

Sophomore Honors English Summer Assignment Period 3 Relationships, Fate, and Freewill Relationships aren’t just a romantic pairing between two people. A platonic friendship can be a form of a relationship. Student and teacher, boss and employee, business owner and customer are all examples of relationships. I feel that this thematic unit will represent relationships between different types of people, and also different type of relationships such as physical and emotional. For me, relationships of