East Of Eden Essay Example

to yourself than what it is you are judging.

In all actuality, this book is really all over the place in the sense that it can jump from one scenario focusing on a particular family and their background to the next without warning but recognize the importance later on. I am going to do my best to now summarize the story, and the plot of the story. The book begins by first discussing the beauty and potential seen in the late 1800’s of Northern California’s own Salinas Valley. Not only does the narrator describe the natural scenery of Salinas Valley but goes into detail n how to measure the likelihood of certain climate conditions and how to differentiate the geographical direction.

Samuel Hamilton and his wife, Liza, move into the area from Ireland. Samuel is known to be rather wise and poised in the community, however led a typically normal life. Samuel and his sometimes strict spouse go on to have nine children all on the most dry and desolate land in the valley. Soon after, the arrival of the Trasks takes place where we are introduced to Adam and his pregnant girlfriend Cathy.

Adam came from Connecticut living with his father, Cyrus, and his half-brother Charles. The narrator than describes the history of their father Cyrus and how his attention seeking led everyone including the government to believe that he was a war hero. In all actuality he shot himself and had his leg amputated on the first day of battle and was “honorably discharged. ” He passed on Syphilis to his first wife, Adam’s mother, and upon hearing the news

killed herself shortly after Adam’s birth.

Alice Trask, Cyrus’s second wife and mother of Adam’s half-brother Charles, essentially becomes the caretaker but is depicted as emotionless and unnerving. As the two brothers are boys you notice the harsh contrast in their nature being that: Adam is very sweet and Charles is very aggressive. Charles picks on him and treats him brutally at times but still misses Adam’s presence when alone. Once the two brothers become young men there was an instance where Charles beats Adam severely leaving him in a ditch after becoming jealous that Cyrus favored Adam’s birthday gift over his own.

The jealousy towards his brother and his father favoring Adam over him begins to climax After Cyrus passes away, both of the brothers are shocked to find out that Cyrus has left them both an inheritance of over $100,000 for them to split evenly. Charles becomes suspicious if this inheritance was actually Cyrus’s “dirty money. ” We are then introduced to Cathy Ames who is depicted as the epitome of what evil is all about. As a young girl Cathy is rebellious, uncooperative, and straight out sadistic. She manipulates and teases her school teacher instigating his own demise after she convinces him to commit suicide.

The continual growth of evil is shown when one day she decides to set her parent’s home on fire burning them alive and running away changing her identity. Shortly after, Cathy is introduced to Mr. Edwards who appears to live an honest lifestyle with a wife and children but still upholds the profession of a pimp thereby employing Cathy. Cathy seduces and manipulates Mr.

Edwards into believing that she is his new found love but upon discovering what she did earlier in life to her parents beats her and leaves her to die in an open field.

Out of sheer desperation Cathy crawls onto the doorstep of the Trasks where Adam cares for Cathy’s bruised body and eventually falls in deep love with her. Charles, still not the best at getting along with his brother Adam, still intuitively senses that Cathy is no good and despises her for taking advantage of his brother’s ignorance. The two brothers, unable to live together, decide to part ways and Adam takes his new fiance to California’s Salinas Valley where he meets Samuel Hamilton and Cathy becomes pregnant.

Adam hires an oriental housekeeper, Lee, and him plus Samuel become very important mediators and outside perspectives in the story influencing Adam’s decisions. Cathy tries desperately to deflect the wishes of Adam and attempts to even have an abortion but fails and still births two twin boys. One day the tension became so strong between the newly-wedded couple that Cathy shot Adam in the arm and fled east to Monterey abandoning Adam and her children. Cathy winds up whoring in a brothel where she does business with the head mistress, Faye.

After gaining Faye’s trust, Cathy was able to poison her food and drinks until finally Faye died and the death was announced as natural causes. Faye passed the brothel onto Cathy and now Cathy calling herself Kate was running the operation blackmailing authoritative figures in Salinas Valley for allegedly performing sexual acts with her prostitutes. Cathy’s business angles worked and remained

at the brothel in Monterey while Adam raised his two boys on the ranch in Salinas Valley. Neither Adam, nor any of his colleagues spoke of the true history behind the boys’ mother.

The depression felt by Adam persists until one day Lee tells Samuel that Adam has not even named his two sons’ yet even though they were getting close to a year old. After a verbal and slight physical confrontation Samuel and Adam both sit down and name the children reading over the bible. Adam decides to give them both biblical titles and names the boys Caleb and Aaron. As time passes on you begin to see the reflections of both parents highlighted within the two brothers. Some years pass and Samuel enters a stage of severe depression upon hearing that his daughter died.

Before leaving to a family reunion Samuel stops by Adam’s home and quietly observes the twins and how strikingly similar they appear in comparison to the biblical story of Cain and Abel. The two friends and Lee discuss the story and debate in interpretation of the story based off of varied translations. Samuel, sincerely concerned for the health of his friend asks Adam if he is happy and receives little to no response of confirmation. Samuel, fed up with Adam’s unwillingness to let go of his past with Cathy informs him that she is the head honcho of one of the most popular local whorehouses in the valley. This interaction left Adam stunned.

Shortly after Samuel passed away Adam went to visit Cathy and discovers that she is purely evil and let’s go of all desire

to be with her. After leaving the brothel Adam felt finally at peace and returns home to his family deciding that it would be best to move from the ranch into the actual town of Salinas for the boys to attend school. In middle school Cal struggles with understanding his desire to do “evil” doings and is viewed as a trouble maker while Aaron takes a more religious route. Aaron meets a kind hearted girl, Abra, fathered by a corrupt government official and they instantly become infatuated over each other.

Time passes on and Aaron ends up going to Stanford University leaving Adam alone with Cal. Desperately seeking the approval of his father, Cal, decides to work in the agricultural field to pay for his brother’s college fund and pay Adam back what he lost in his last failed business venture. You begin to see Abra becoming closer to Cal and more understanding of his actions because she now can see how it relates to her and her lifestyle. Now Cal’s investment has paid off and has enough funds accumulated to help his family as he had originally sought out to do.

He plans to give the newly earned wealth to his father on Thanksgiving. When Thanksgiving arrives Adam is excited to see his son Aaron visit from college. However Adam fails to realize how excited his other son Cal is to present him with his gift. Adam is overwhelmingly excited with joy to see Aaron but than chooses to disregard Cal’s gift by accusing him of earning it dishonestly. Outraged and overwhelmed with anger Cal takes Aaron to see his biological mother,

Cathy and when finding out the truth of her past becomes traumatized.

Afterwards Aaron joins the army which earlier in the story despised due to his religious beliefs and Cathy committed suicide writing everything in her will to Aaron. Adam now mentally and physically exhausted from all that has taken place does his best to accept his current circumstances and slowly regains his health. Cal and Abra became a couple and enjoyed the new chapter of their lives. One day the Trasks received a telegram that Aaron was killed in battle. Upon hearing that his son died away in war Adam had a stroke and stayed in the hospital in critical condition.

Cal and Abra were now worried out of their minds and as Adam was lying on his deathbed spoke to his son this one last word before he died, “Timshel. ” It really was a wild journey and had me wondering the fate of Abra and Cal at the end. The word “timshel” is a Hebrew word translated in English meaning “though mayest. ” This specific word I felt was so significant and definitely fit the theme of the story. The reason being is that by understanding that everyone “thou mayest” as they please reflects the message of acceptance for the people and things you cannot change. The whole book was essentially a power struggle between two forces.

Adam expected too much of Aaron but would feel no desire to fully love Cal. Cathy’s desire to be independent was also balanced out for her interest in and need to know her family. Aaron programed himself to act out in his

perception of what “good” is but becomes dearly depressed when facing “bad” situations. The Godly and Evil tendencies within our own psyche can be thrown off balance when either personality becomes suppressed or uncleansed. Adam failed to recognize that you cannot be happy all the time and Cathy failed to recognize that you cannot be angry all the time.

Many people suppress feelings of guilt, anger, envy, or hate thru as Adam did, simply ignore it without resolving it. Cathy definitely suppressed her feelings of love thru her desensitization of evil-doings, and substance abuse. Many spiritual leaders and wise men of the past have always referred to a state of mind that recognizes the importance of maintaining balance and control over emotions. I feel that Cal was the main character in questioning this balance by feeling a certain way but conscious of the opposite. What has occurred is that many prefer one over the other and choose to suppress certain emotions based off of their beliefs.

Such as a person that believes he should not feel hate can suppress this feeling which leads to that emotion being expressed thru passive aggression, depression, or worse. On the other hand, a person that believes he should not feel love will only do the opposite suppressing a natural urge. Both characters demonstrated are afraid of looking at the suppressed emotion within. Of course sense they’re afraid of looking at themselves they definitely do not want to be around individuals that perpetuate this even if it is their family, children, or loved ones.

This idea is clearly seen in Cyrus’s favor for Adam over Charles, Adam’s

favor for Aaron over Cal, and Cathy’s favor for her “ways” over Adam’s “ways. ” It is very interesting to note that there is an obvious phenomenon known to occur referred to as “opposites attract. ” This is obviously demonstrated throughout the whole book in Adam’s attraction to Cathy and Abra’s attraction to Cal. I feel this has to happen because opposites truly do feed off of each other and work more efficiently together.

A woman might see something in a male that she is lacking on the inside and even if it is contrary to her beliefs may still become attracted based off of that inner-void and curiosity. This is how many dysfunctional relationships are created but can become transmuted if both individuals dedicate to learn from each other’s differences rather than resenting them. I think by understanding someone or something that you despise you actually become more balanced because you can now empathize and use it rather than deny its value. There was a quote that once said: “Pacifists become militants.

Freedom fighters become tyrants. Blessings become curses. Help becomes hindrance. More becomes less. ” I bring this up because I feel it clearly shows the message of how anything; and I mean anything, in excess can lead to destruction. If an individual decides to stick on one side of the pole (i. e. positive or negative) the person will become out of balance. This is science, math, and pure common sense. Unfortunately, once an out of balance individual suppresses an emotion for so long when it is time for the energy to return back to neutral it typically doesn’t but

rather goes to the opposite pole.

An example of this is seen when Aron is finally pushed passed his limits after seeing the true history of his family’s past and decides to do the opposite of his normal way of thinking by joining the military. I also feel that sometimes and individual has to see the opposite in order to remember what it is like to be that way. In other words a person might become attracted to a kind individual because he has forgotten what it is like to kind. The story also emphasizes the idea of history repeating itself or should we say people repeating their actions.

You see a striking similarity in how things start and end from generation to generation within the Trasks family. A father favors one son over the other, grows resented by both for imposing freewill, father lies to avoid emotional distress, ends up creating more distress by lying in the first place. You see that the cycle keeps repeating itself and was of constant notice throughout the read. I really did admire that Steinbeck used so many biblical and ancient symbology throughout the whole book. There were reflections of deeper meanings and hidden tones behind certain names when looking at etymology.

Even the fact that shortly after Aaron’s birth the author decided to drop one A to Aron similar to biblical text is another indication of hidden meanings. I felt that I studied a little bit about my history as well considering it was based out of Northern California. I just wish it wasn’t so depressing but at the same time as the book

reflects it is my choice to decide whether it depresses me or not. Jon Steinbeck is a genius, just perhaps a little dark in his philosophical approach. This leads me to my next point of analyzing not only the message but the author himself who was conveying the message.

There is much debate regarding who exactly Steinbeck is and which character he is playing in this book. I think that in order to write a novel with such insight and vivid detail you most likely experienced it firsthand. With that being said I believe that Steinbeck might very well be Cal or Aron as over time those two, specifically Cal, become the main character of focus. Stories like this one and many other similar always remind me over what has been happening in the interpretation of holy books and doctrines found in ancient scriptures.

I feel that, in many cases, these books can be interpreted literally and therefore have external meanings and value. However, in my opinion, most of those books and the stories written in those teachings were only supposed to be taken objectively with the main idea in mind. In other words, East of Eden, has a remarkable message reflecting upon what is the true definition of good and evil. However, this message may very well be overlooked if you look too closely and try to dissect it from an external point of view.

We can choose to debate over what skin color the prophet was or whether or not Aron truly loved himself but these types of external questions only distract you from the true meaning and message of

these stories. I begin to think that Steinbeck had deep awareness regarding esoteric and spiritual knowledge. Perhaps at the time he felt that people would be a lot more open to the wisdom he possessed if he wrote it in a format that many are already familiar with. That may be the exact reason why he chose the novel to have the echo of a biblical tone.

Regardless of people’s interpretation of the true meaning behind this story, this book and its message can serve as a valuable tool on understanding life and understanding yourself. There are bits and pieces of this book that I can directly relate to my past, the past of others, and situations I still currently face till this day. Overall, I feel that East of Eden serves as a handbook by showing the reader what to do in order to reach real contentment. It’s very interesting to me that Steinbeck chooses to convey that message by demonstrating people doing just the opposite. became a couple and Cathy comitted aumatized.