| East of Eden | |
First edition cover |
|
| Author | John Steinbeck |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Novel |
| Publisher | The Viking Press |
| Publication date | September 1952 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 728 |
| ISBN | N/A |
| Preceded by | Log From the Sea of Cortez |
| Followed by | Sweet Thursday |
East of Eden is a novel by Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck, published in September 1952.
Often described as Steinbeck's most ambitious novel, East of Eden brings to life the intricate details of two families, the Trasks and the Hamiltons, and their interwoven stories. The novel was originally addressed to Steinbeck's young sons, Thom and John (then 6½ and 4½ respectively). Steinbeck wanted to describe the Salinas Valley for them in detail: the sights, sounds, smells, and colors.
The Hamilton family in the novel is said to be based on the real-life family of Samuel Hamilton, Steinbeck's maternal grandfather.[1] A young John Steinbeck also appears briefly in the novel as a minor character.[2]
According to his last wife Elaine, he considered this to be a requiem for himself—his greatest novel ever. Steinbeck stated about East of Eden: "It has everything in it I have been able to learn about my craft or profession in all these years." He further claimed: "I think everything else I have written has been, in a sense, practice for this."
Contents |
The story is primarily set in the Salinas Valley, California, between the beginning of the 20th century and the end of the Great War (World War I), though some chapters are in Connecticut and Massachusetts, and the story goes as far back as the American Civil War.
In the beginning of East of Eden, before introducing his characters, John Steinbeck carefully establishes the setting with a description of the Salinas Valley in Northern California.
Adam Trask, after a tumultuous childhood in the East and enduring harsh treatment from his younger brother, Charles, spends his time first in the military and then wandering the country. He is caught for vagrancy and asks Charles for 100 dollars. Charles reveals that their father has died and now they have an inheritance of 50,000 dollars each. When the brothers live together at the family farm in Connecticut, they find Cathy Ames, a viciously beaten woman, on their doorstep. Adam falls in love with her, and soon marries her.
Samuel Hamilton and his wife Liza, immigrants from Ireland, raise their nine children on the rough infertile hillside. As the Hamilton children leave the nest, Adam Trask — newly wed and newly rich after inheriting considerable wealth from his deceased father, Cyrus Trask — settles with a pregnant Cathy into a large and fertile plot near the Hamilton plot. Shortly after Cathy gives birth to twins, she shoots Adam in the shoulder and flees. Adam recovers and raises his children with the help of his Cantonese cook, Lee.
Meanwhile, Cathy becomes a prostitute at a brothel in the city of (Salinas). She renames herself Kate to avoid recognition, and eventually becomes the owner of the most "respectable" brothel in the area, after killing its former owner, Faye, who had called Kate her daughter and said that she would inherit all her wealth. Kate makes the brothel infamous for its brutal treatment of clients. Samuel Hamilton later reveals Cathy's whereabouts to Adam, hoping that the truth will not kill him but set him free. Adam later visits Cathy during a trip, and Cathy (now Kate) reveals to him that his brother Charles is possibly the biological father of his two boys.
Adam's sons, named Caleb (Cal) and Aaron (Aron) — after their namesakes in the Bible — grow up oblivious of their mother's situation, with Cal pursuing a career in business with Will Hamilton, one of Samuel's sons, and Aron going to college to become an Episcopalian priest. Aron goes on to become very popular among the townspeople, while Cal goes on to become a recluse. At a very early age, Aron meets a popular girl named Abra from a well-to-do family, and the two fall in love. Cal finds out about his mother from a drunken acquaintance of his father, and goes to meet her; Kate learns of her two children, and recognizes Cal's similarity to herself in mindset and similarity to Charles in appearance.
Adam becomes inspired by Samuel Hamilton's inventiveness and begins to come up with ideas on how to transport produce across the country using iceboxes on trains. The plan fails, causing Adam and his family, now living in Salinas, to lose most of their wealth. To give a gift to his father — admittedly to buy his father's love — Cal works with Will Hamilton to make his father's money back, capitalizing on World War I by selling beans grown in the Salinas Valley to nations in Europe for a considerable premium.
Aron returns from Stanford for Thanksgiving. At dinner, Cal gives his father the money, but Adam refuses to accept the money and tells him to give it back to the poor farmers he exploited. Adam adds
I would have been so happy if you could have given me — well, what your brother has — pride in the thing he's doing, gladness in his progress. Money, even clean money, doesn't stack up with that.[3]
and concludes with
If you want to give me a present — give me a good life. That would be something I could value.
In a fit of jealousy, Cal takes his brother to see their mother, knowing it will be a shock to Aron (who is still under the belief that she had died and was buried on the East Coast). Aron, his idealistic world view shattered, enlists in the army to fight in World War I. He is killed in battle in the last year of the war, and Adam suffers a stroke upon hearing the news from Lee. Cal, who later befriends Abra after Aron leaves for war, tells her why Aron left and tries to convince her to run away with him. She instead persuades him to return home.
The novel ends with a bedridden Adam giving Cal his blessing in the form of the word Timshel! (a Hebrew word said in the novel to mean 'thou mayest'), alluding to the point that Cal may have the ability to conquer his evil nature.
Cathy Ames/ Kate Representative of Satan, and the most evil character in the novel, Cathy, who will be named Kate in the second half of the book, is a parasite who embodies evil. As more than one character points out, Cathy lacks some human quality. She murders her parents by setting fire to their house and becomes the mistress of pimp Mr. Edwards. She is rescued by Adam Trask when Edwards leaves her for dead.
After giving birth to twin sons, Cal and Aron, she shoots Adam when he attempts to stop her from leaving. She takes a job as a prostitute and poisons brothel-owner Faye while taking over the business. She gives her whores drugs, encourages sadomasochistic sexual practices and blackmails her customers. Late in life she commits suicide after encountering her son Aron.
Abra Bacon Abra Bacon meets Aron as a child and falls in love with him until she realizes as an adult that Aron has been in love with a dream girl. Daughter of a county supervisor in Salinas, she learns her father is a thief. Her maturity and goodness contrast the evil Cathy. Lee, who loves her like a daughter, shares with her the knowledge that she doesn't have to follow in her father's footsteps.
Mr. Edwards Mr. Edwards is a businessman who runs a New England prostitution ring and leads a double life. His deeply religious wife knows nothing of his business affairs. Mr. Edwards falls in love with Cathy when she approaches him for a job. Soon, she had him completely in her power. He leaves her for dead near the Trask farm after nearly beating her to death.
Ethel Ethel is a prostitute at Faye's brothel who digs up the empty bottles of poison used by Kate to kill Faye. She attempts to blackmail Cathy but is later found dead by Joe Valery.
Cotton Eye Cotton Eye is the brothel's piano player who is addicted to opium. Kate slyly tells Faye she feels sorry for him to gain her sympathy and cast her in a positive light.
Faye Faye is the good-hearted madam of the Salinas whorehouse who comes to think of Kate (Cathy) as her daughter and leaves the brothel to her in her will before Cathy poisons her.
Dessie Hamilton Dessie Hamilton is the happy go-lucky and most beloved daughter to Samuel and Liza. She opens a dressmaking business in Salinas, and falls in love with the wrong man who causes her deep distress she can share with no one. After she closes her business, she moves back to the ranch where Tom inadvertently gives her a medication that causes her death.
Liza Hamilton Liza Hamilton is the wise mother of the nine Hamilton children and the tiny wife of Samuel. Strict and hard working with good sound sense, she acts as a counter-balance to her dreamer of a husband. Unlike him, Lisa is pragmatic to a fault and abhors drinking until, that is, the doctor prescribes port wine in her old age.
Olive Hamilton Olive Hamilton is the daughter of Samuel and Liza Hamilton who becomes a teacher and mother to the narrator (and the mother of the author) John Steinbeck. As an example of a loving mother, she contrasts the nefarious non-mother Cathy Ames.
Tom Hamilton Tom Hamilton is the son of Samuel's heart. A poet who remains on the farm after his parents grow old, he sinks into deep depression after his much-beloved father dies. He accidentally causes the death of his sister Dessie by poison and kills himself out of guilt.
Una Hamilton Una Hamilton is the deeply unhappy daughter of Samuel and Liza Hamilton. She marries a photographer and moves to Oregon where he keeps her in great poverty. Her death causes the beginning of Samuel's demise.
Samuel Hamilton Samuel Hamilton is the much-beloved and admired Hamilton family patriarch who acts as a mentor for Adam Trask and stands in sharp contrast to Cyrus, the dishonest Trask family patriarch.
A self-educated immigrant from Northern Ireland, he demonstrates the positive principle of life. Although he farms the most barren land in the Salinas Valley, he is enormously prolific, fathering nine children and enjoying life to the fullest until the death of his favorite daughter Una saddens him deeply and permanently.
Samuel Hamilton was indeed author John Steinbeck's grandfather who emigrated from Northern Ireland where he was self-educated from borrowed books. Although Samuel experienced initial distrust from his new California neighbors because of his Irish background, in time he wins their hearts with his goodness and hard work as a blacksmith and pseudo-doctor. Although he never achieves wealth on his poor farm, he is happy with his lot. His family never go hungry and have everything they need. Reminiscent of a biblical patriarch, he fathers a dynasty of nine children. Like many Irish, he tends to dream of the future, always attempts to improve things, and, fearful of his wife's scorn, drinks whiskey on the sly.
Will Hamilton Will Hamilton is the son of Samuel and Liza and the antithesis of his dreamer father. Samuel. Practical to a fault, he was born to be a businessman. The first to sell cars in the Salinas Valley, he becomes Cal Trask's business partner.
Lee Lee is the Chinese-American cook and housekeeper to Adam Trask's family. He speaks in a Chinese pidgin dialect to "survive" life in America. He brings up Adam's children from the time they are abandoned by their mother. A philosopher, he is a heartfelt friend to Samuel Hamilton and Adam Trask and forms the third insightful part of their dialogs. He researches the Cain and Abel story for years and brings to life the novel's central concept of timshel "thou mayest."
Horace Quinn Horace Quinn is the sheriff who as a deputy covered up Kate's life as a prostitute to protect Adam and the twins. Later in the novel, he informs Adam of Kate's death and tells him that Aron is his mother's beneficiary of $100,000.
Aron Trask Aron Trask is the fair-haired twin son of Adam and Cathy Trask and the twin brother of Cal. Deeply religious and celibate, he plans to enter the ministry to escape the world. He is favored by Adam, much to Cal's chagrin, and is in love with Abra Bacon. When he discovers his mother, who abandoned him as an infant, is still alive and living as a prostitute, he leaves Stanford and runs away to join the Army and dies soon after.
Adam Trask Protagonist of the early part of East of Eden, Adam Trask is a benevolent and deeply honest man who grows from a dreamy, misdirected youth into a passionately alive man who cares deeply about his sons, Cal and Aron.
The son of Cyrus Trask, he falls in love with Cathy Ames when she wanders injured and helpless into his farm. Adam represents the biblical character Abel who was slain by his brother in a jealous rage. His blessing of his son Cal at the end of the novel authenticates timshel, the novel's central concept which mandates that humans are not predestined to fail or to succeed but have free choice.
Alice Trask Alice Trask is the passive mother of Charles Trask and caring step-mother to Adam Trask. She rarely talks. She smiles, however, when no one sees her. Adam leaves her little gifts of love, but she wrongfully believes them to be from her son, Charles.
Caleb Trask Known as Cal, the dark-haired son of Adam and Cathy is jealous of his seemingly perfect twin brother, Aron Trask. Cal represents the novel's second Cain figure, indirectly killing his brother Aron (Abel) whom he forces to enlist in the Army. Ultimately, however, he demonstrates the novel's major concept of timshel, that people can overcome their background and choose free moral lives.
Charles Trask Charles Trask acts out in anger against his half-brother after their father Cyrus favors Adam's gift of a puppy over his gift of an expensive knife. He is representative of the biblical Cain figure who kills his brother when God favors the gift of Abel's lamb over his gift of grain. He has a dark brown scar from an accident and remains on the family Connecticut farm as Adam wanders and manages to amass a fortune of $100,000 that he leaves to Adam and Cathy.
Cyrus Trask Cyrus Trask is the family patriarch who commits the "original sin" that determines the action of the novel. The cruel father of the brothers Adam and Charles, he lies about his record as a Civil War hero and gains an important administration job in Washington D.C. which allows him to leave an ill-gained inheritance of $100,000 to his sons.
Mrs. Trask Mrs. Trask is the deeply religious mother of Adam Trask who commits suicide soon after her husband Cyrus Trask returns home from the Civil War and infects her with syphilis.
Joe Valery Joe Valery is an ex-convict bodyguard and bouncer who attempts to control Kate who is fearful her murder of Faye will be discovered. As her arthritic pain increases, Kate comes to rely more and more on him and when she realizes that he is extorting money from her, she commits suicide, but not before turning him into the sheriff.
The book explores themes of depravity, beneficence, love, and the struggle for acceptance, greatness, and the capacity for self-destruction and especially of guilt and freedom. It ties these themes together with references to and many parallels with the biblical Book of Genesis (especially Genesis Chapter 4, the story of Cain and Abel).
Steinbeck's inspiration for the novel comes from the fourth chapter of Genesis, verses one through sixteen, which recounts the story of Cain and Abel. The title, East of Eden, was chosen by Steinbeck from Genesis, Chapter 4, verse 16: "And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden" (King James Version).
Steinbeck's allusion to Cain and Abel is furthered by the naming of the Trask family; the first letters of the names of the brothers are in match throughout the generations (Charles and Adam, Cal and Aron).
Some of the biblical parallels include:
| Book of Genesis, Cain and Abel | East of Eden, Charles and Adam | East of Eden, Caleb and Aron |
|---|---|---|
| Cain is a "worker of the ground"; Abel is a "keeper of sheep" (Gen. 4:2, ESV). | Charles is a farmer who works diligently even after he inherits considerable wealth from his father, Cyrus. | Caleb invests in bean crops. Aron vies to become a priest (who are commonly compared with shepherds). |
| God rejects Cain's gift of crops in favor of Abel's lamb (Gen. 4:3, ESV). | Cyrus prefers the gift from his son Adam (a stray puppy he found) over the gift from his other son Charles (a hard-earned expensive knife). | Adam rejects his son Cal's money and would rather he lead a good life like Aron. |
| After rejection from God, Cain kills Abel (Gen. 4:8, ESV). | After being rejected by their father, Charles attacks Adam and beats him nearly to death. | After Adam rejects Cal's money, Cal informs Aron of their mother's brothel. Aron, distraught, enlists in the war and is killed in combat. |
| God put a mark on Cain to deter others from killing him (Gen. 4:15, ESV). | Charles receives a dark scar on his forehead while trying to move a boulder from his fields. | Cal is described as having a more dark and sinister appearance than Aron. Also noteworthy is the fact that Adam tells Cal, "timshel," meaning "thou mayest." This implies Cal may overcome his evil nature because of the "mark" put upon him by Adam. |
| Cain is the only one with progeny. | Charles is the only one with children, as it is speculated that the twins Aron and Cal are his. | Aron dies in the war, and Cal is the only one able to carry on and have children |
There are also contrasts with the Biblical story. For example, in Genesis, Cain becomes a vagabond. In East of Eden, it is the brother Adam who spends several years as a vagabond.
As he wrote the novel, Steinbeck went through a number of possible titles for the book, including "The Salinas Valley", the working title from the beginning; "My Valley", after a Texas businessman suggested he make it more universal; "Down to the Valley", and then, after he decided to incorporate the Biblical allusion directly into the title, "Cain Sign". It was only upon transcribing the 16 verses of Cain and Abel in the text itself that he enthusiastically took the last three words of the final verse, East of Eden, as the novel's title.
The novel was not well accepted by the critics of its day, who found it heavy-handed and unconvincing, especially in its use of Biblical allusion. Nevertheless, it became an instant best-seller in November 1952, a mere month after it was released, and is now considered one of Steinbeck's finest achievements.
The following pages contain chapter summaries, anaylses (of themes, symbolism, and motifs), and/or character profiles:
|
||||||||||||||