The people in this novel go from thinking of their experiences as separate and begin thinking of them as united. This is believed to be how Steinbeck differentiated the indivualism of Babel and “the one and the many” in Hebrew thought. To open sharing of Pentecost and community. These theological questions were central to most of Steinbeck’s writing and seemed to be almost practice for the religious takings and themes he would use in his later novel East of Eden. East of Eden is considered by many to be Steinbeck’s magnum opus, from Latin which means an artist’s greatest or most renowned piece. Steinbeck said later “It has everything in it I have been able to learn about my craft or profession in all these years”. He said further: "I think everything else I have written has been, in a sense, practice for this”.
East of Eden was published in 1952 in New York, it was labelled as one of Steinbeck’s most ambitious novels because of its depiction of violence and its religious prominence. Set in the Salinas Valley, the novel follows the destinies of two families- the Trasks and the Hamiltons- whose generations helplessly reenact the fall of man and woman and the rivalry of Cain and Able (The novel …show more content…
Everything including, the novel’s title imply a religious subtext, the title implies that the characters are somewhere far away from Eden. Inside of the bible Eden is a place where everything is good but the “east” in the title implies that they are somewhere the opposite of good. This idea is present throughout the book as the readers watch the characters that live inside of the setting of the book do disgusting and volatile things that are the complete opposite of good.
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF The story of Cain and Able is a main idea in the story as the novel follows Adam Trask and Charles Trask. Early on in the novel, Cyrus the father of Adam and Charles, two of the main characters, receives gift from both of them for his birthday. Adam gave him a stray puppy he found but Charles gave him an expensive German knife which took all of the money Charles had saved. Cyrus loves the puppy but he never uses the knife, to Charles