Allusions In East Of Eden And Alice Trask

On the hand, we have the “A” characters, who are supposed to be allusions to the biblical Abel, the brother who’s offering God preferred and who was later killed by his brother Cain. In East of Eden, the main Abel-like characters are Adam Trask, his son Aron and other characters such as Abra Bacon and Alice Trask can be considered as minor Abel’s allusions. These two women will be dealt with now, because Adam and his son Aron will be examined throughout the entire thesis.
Alice Trask
Alice Trask is Cyrus’ second wife and mother of Charles. Cyrus marries her when he needs someone to take care of little Adam after his mother, Mrs. Trask dies. She is the oldest of three daughters and she is seventeen years old when she marries. Within two weeks, she is pregnant with …show more content…
This means that she does not have much energy and she often has to sit down totally exhausted. She is never angry, she never cries, laughs or even smiles, until one day when she is in kitchen doing knitting, Adam sees her without Alice noticing him. She is smiling and Adam is so shocked that he goes to the woods to his hiding place. “Adam was so shocked as though he had come upon her naked. He breathed excitedly, high against his throat. For Alice had been naked – she had been smiling” (East of Eden 27). It was after that Adam starts to love Alice and starts spying on her and waiting for her to smile to herself, which she does sometimes. He loves her so much that she starts to find some small random gifts all over their house. After the peewee incident, when Charles loses the game and beats Adam to unconsciousness, when Adam awakens, he sees Alice in the window and he sees on her face something he has never seen before. “He did not know what it was, but it was not soft or weak, and it might be hatred” (East of Eden 30). Whether it was hatred towards