Morality In John Steinbeck's East Of Eden

John Steinbeck's East of Eden reflects the theme of a person’s inner battle between “morality and immorality”. One of the important characters in the novel, Lee, a Chinese-American servant for Adam Trask and his family is considered one of the key remarkable characters in American Literature. Although just having the job title of “servant”, Lee does more than is expected of him and becomes more of a superior assistant to the Trask Family until the utmost end. In the novel, Lee, a very philosophical person, often introduces themes for the novel including the Hebrew word, “timshel”, which means “Thou mayest”. Consequently, he is depicted as being trapped by racial expectations from others and having to contain his own emotions as he can be seen …show more content…
When Cathy shoots Adam in the arm, is the time when Lee offers the most help to Adam. Soon after Adam was shot, “he seemed clothed in a viscosity that slowed his movements and held his thoughts down. He saw the world through gray water. Now and then his mind fought its way upward, and when the light broke in it brought him only a sickness of the mind, and he retired into the grayness again” (Steinbeck, 250). Consequently, Adam quickly fell into a state of depression and was shocked that Cathy and left him. However, Lee prevents Adam from dying because of stress, and alongside Samuel, helps bring Adam out of his state of depression over time. Lee also convinces Adam to care for his newborn sons and improves his morals while growing fond of the two little boys. This is when Lee also introduced the idea of “timshel” by telling Adam, “Don’t you see? . . . The American Standard translation orders men to triumph over sin, and you call sin ignorance. The King James translation makes a promise in ‘Thou shalt, meaning that men will surely triumph over sin. But the Hebrew word, the word timshel—‘Thou mayest’—that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world. That says the way is open” (Steinbeck, 301). When Lee gives this advice to Adam, he is implying that one has the choice to overcome evil like Cain did in the Bible, …show more content…
While Aron and Cal, Adam’s sons, are growing up, Lee becomes their fatherhood figure as Adam recovers from his incident with Cathy. Although Lee is not their biological father, he becomes a great father to them and is the reason why Aron and Cal grow up to be who they are. When the Trask Family decides to move to Salinas, Lee decides it's time for him to move to San Francisco and pursue his dream of opening his own bookstore. Consequently, Adam becomes sad to hear the news but decides to let Lee go and strive for other things in life. However, almost a month later, Lee returned “on the ten-forty and let himself in with his own key” (Steinbeck, 416). The reason Lee came back to Adam was because he felt lonesome in San Francisco, and felt that he would rather be with “family” as he later tells Adam, “I am incomparably, incredibly, overwhelmingly glad to be home. I’ve never been so goddam lonesome in my life” (Steinbeck 417). Although Lee left the Trask Family to strive for his dream of opening on a bookstore in San Francisco, he felt that Adam was a part of his family, and returned to his “home”. Towards the end of the novel, Adam becomes paralyzed after hearing that his son Aron was killed in World War 1. The doctor came and diagnosed Adam to be gone very soon, and this leads Lee to want for Adam to give