Analysis Of John Steinbeck's To A God Unknown And East Of Eden

John Steinbeck is widely known as one of the most memorable American writers and has greatly influenced realistic and regionalistic literature in the writing world. Steinbeck’s most well-known works that accomplished this are To a God Unknown and East of Eden. In To a God Unknown, Steinbeck writes about Joseph Wayne, a rancher who was born on his father's ranch and is one of four boys. Joseph is younger than Burton and Thomas, who are already married, and older than his brother, Benjy. As Joseph grows up, he gains a special connection to the land and decides to move to California to create a house and start a family. In East of Eden, Steinbeck writes about the story of a great inventor and farmer named Samuel Hamilton and his wife, Liza, who …show more content…
[...] But I have a new love for that glittering instrument, the human soul. It is a lovely and unique thing in the universe’” (323; ch. 29).Lee discovers that he is a compassionate person who appreciates having people in his life to share experiences. On the other hand, Steinbeck also has instances where people's relationships harm their well-being and character. A critic writes, “They come together in the Salinas Valley, there to enact the scenes that are vital to Steinbeck’s story of a new creation, this time the creation by man of his own world. This is, however, no usual family record of getting and spending, begetting and dying. The events are numerous, spectacular, often violent” (Gray 56). While some human relationships can reinforce someone's character, many family conflicts can cause people to acquire defects of a negative nature. Steinbeck provides situations in which both cases are true, with Lee's compassion and Charles's resentment when he lives with his brother