East of Eden
John Steinbeck
East of Eden
• Setting
– Salinas Valley
– Poetic, nostalgic
• “I remember that the Gabilan Mountains to the east of the valley were light
gay mountains full of sun and loveliness and a kind of invitation…”
• “The Santa Lucias stood up against the sky…they were dark and broodingunfriendly and dangerous. I always found in myself a dread of the west and
a love of the east” (3)
• Biblical allegory
– Salinas as the Garden of Eden
• Use of imagery to relay theme of past and nostalgia
• Juxtaposition of good and evil
– Mythical and archetypical motifs
– Parallels characters and theme
– Structuralism
East of Eden
• Setting presents archetypes
• Salinas is located between
– Good vs. evil
– Light vs.dark
– Birth vs. death
– Parallel characters and themes of novel
East of Eden
• Archetype
• “From both sides of the valley little stream
slipped out of the hill canyons and fell into the
bed of the Salinas River. In the winter of wet
years the streams ran full-freshest, and they
swelled the river until sometimes it raged and
boiled…” (3)
– Cycle of life
– Re-birth
Narrator
• Steinbeck
– “I always found in myself a dread of the West and
a love of the East” (3)
– 3rd person omniscient
• Reveal personal thoughts of some characters
• Slips into 1st person- reveals opinions and thoughts of
Steinbeck
– Connects personal experience with fiction
– Tone
• Nostalgic
Hamiltons
• Hamiltons
• Symbol of happy, well-balanced family
– Samuel
– Symbol of the past
– Archetype
• Wise older man
• Ingenious, philosophical, spirit of the former age
• “Besides, they loved to hear Samuel talk of the world and its thinking,
of the poetry and philosophy that were going on outside the Salinas
Valley.” (10)
– Inventor, dreamer, generous
– “no gift for business”
– “the Hamiltons stayed poor”
Trasks
• Contrast to Hamilton’s working class status
– “These usually bought land, but good land, but good land,
and built their houses of planed lumber and had carpets
and colored-glass diamond panes in their windows. There
were numbers of these families and they got the good land
of the valley and cleared the yellow mustard away and
planted wheat. Such a man was Adam Trask.” (13)
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Father Cyrus “something of a devil”
Archetype “shadow figure”
Foil to Samuel
Driven by a need to be important
Trasks
• Alice Trask
– Quiet and obedient
– Misplaced love for Charles
• “’For a long time he has given me little presents, pretty
things you wouldn’t think he’s even notice” (33).
– Dramatic irony
Adam & Charles Trask
• Allusion to Adam and Eve
– “When a child first catches adults out- when it first walks
into his grave little head that adults do not have divine
intelligence, that their judgments are not always wise,
their thinking true, their sentences just- his world falls into
panic desolation. The gods are fallen and all safety
gone…Adam found his father out” (19-20)
• Archetypical motif
– Initiation
– Adam must overcome obstacles
Adam &Charles Trask
• Adam’s half-brother
• Served as protector
– “Adam was glad of Charles the way a woman is glad of a fat
diamond, and he depended on his on his brother in the way that
same woman depends on the diamond’s glitter and the selfsecurity tied up in its worth; but love, affection, empathy were
beyond conception” (21).
• Grows to contempt between the brothers
• Product of paternal rejection
– Result in anger, crime and guilt
– Symbol of evil
– Character archetype
Adam & Charles Trask
• Theme of childhood rejection and its effects
• Adam takes after mother
– Sensitive and obedient
• Charles after father
– Angry and cruel
• Strong sense of competition
– “’You’re [Adam] trying to take him away!” (29)
• Adam doesn’t love his father
• Charles seeks love from his father
Adam and Charles Trask
• Biblical allusion
– “’You think I didn’t see?…You brought his a mongrel pup you picked up
in the woods…That dog sleeps in his room. He plays with while he’s
reading” (30)
• Adam fears father and brother
– “And all the this time Adam looked at his brother as the condemned
look hopelessly and puzzled at the executioner” (30).
• Fear and confusion of Charles's actions
• Reader identifies with Adam
Adam & Charles Trask
• “…and Adam could see the hatchet in his right
hand” (31).
– Going to kill his own brother
– Indicates inherent evil within Charles