Adam Trask In Of Mice And Men

The way that Steinbeck allegorically illustrates his characters based on biblical figures reinforces the presence of religion at the time of the text and the emotions of society at the time of the text. In the novel, one of the main characters, Adam Trask is constructed based on the biblical Adam as well as the biblical Abel. Adam Trask is described as a trusting being with a genuine nature, setting him up as the Abel figure in the first generation of the Trask family. He is his father’s favourite and inadvertently stimulates the jealously of his brother, Charles. This favouritism in turn angers Charles, who so diligently attempts to win over his father’s affection. In Genesis, Cain murders Abel because God prefers Abel’s offering over Cain’s. …show more content…
However, in the novel, although Charles attempts to kill Adam, he does not and the family feud is pushed on in the next generation, with Adam’s sons, Cal and Aron. Later on in the novel, Adam is depicted as a good-natured, yet flawed man who is recurrently too trusting and oblivious to evil. This naivety thereafter leads him to fall in love with a woman who unknowingly, embodies the essence of evil. Similarly biblical Adam is placed on Earth where he is forbidden to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil: he remains oblivious to the evil of the world. In the story of Adam and Eve, Adam is set out in the world naked, oblivious to everything that surrounds him. Similarly, Steinbeck’s Adam, maintains a naivety that blinds him from evil in human life. The naivety and oblivion of the character cannot only be linked to the Bible itself, but also to society at the time of the text. In the early twentieth century, people had not been accustomed to the atrocities that accompanied war and when WWI came about, many chose not to believe in its brutality. Essentially, many chose to stay oblivious to the evil that mankind brought forth, much like Adam