I felt myself moved by John Steinbeck’s 1952 novel, “East of Eden.” The characters and dialogue felt alive in a way I don’t see in many novels. I found myself weeping with the brother pairs and cheering on for their successes.
The novel follows two generations of the Trask family. Brothers Charles and Adam Trask begin their lives in Connecticut. Eventually, Adam and his wife Cathy move to California, only after Cathy sleeps with Charles, unbeknownst to Adam. Cathy is a former prostitute, thief and murderer, and after giving birth to twins, Cal and Aron, shoots Adam and flees to return to life as a prostitute.
Adam survives the gunshot and raises the boys, never telling them the truth about their mother, though Cal one day finds out. Aron goes on to attend Stanford and Cal involves himself in a bean scheme, netting a fortune. Adam rejects the fortune while both boys are home, and Cal reveals the truth of their mother to Aron, who then enlists in World War I as a result of his disillusionment and dies in the war. The novel ends with Cal begging for forgiveness from his father, which he seems to grant.
Both pairs of brothers are meant to be compared to Cain and Abel (Adam even considers naming his twins after the pair), with the father’s favoritism towards one brother over another and the violence of the agricultural brother being two key points of comparison. Steinbeck intentionally casts both pairs of Trask brothers in the shadow of the original twins. This begs the question of whether the brothers have any choice or if they’re bound to the violence and patterns of their ancestors.
“East of Eden” seems to imply the brothers are free to choose the right path. The forced connections between each of the pairs of brothers turn the novel into a commentary on cycles of violence and sin, and a story of the human resilience it takes to break them. This humanity is the novel’s strongest element. All of the characters are fleshed out and real, and every line of dialogue and peek into their psyche only causes the reader to grow more invested in their struggles and lives.
The only flaw holding this novel back from being perfect is its treatment of women. Cathy, the only prominent woman character, is a violent prostitute. She is portrayed as untrustworthy, unchanging and vile in every way, with Cal’s main sin being believing he inherited his mother’s nature. This forces the question of whether Steinbeck meant to portray Cathy as representative of women or as another victim of the human condition. The novel, perhaps purposefully, doesn’t do enough to provide an answer.
4.75/5 Stars