East of Eden

I will discuss topic number two with East of Eden. East of Eden incorporates camera placement, mood lighting, and camera angles to further enhance an actor’s performance and the overall mood of the scene. For instance, the Trask family sits at the dining room, a traditional family setting, but under dark mood lighting. The side of the table with the main protagonist Cal is more darkly lit than the side of the table were Cal’s father Adam and Cal’s brother Aron are seated, which is warmly lit.…

In East of Eden, John Steinbeck introduces Adam as young, naive boy whose graciousness leads him to be ill-treated by both his father, brother, and future wife. Adam’s refinement and ability to have empathy for others cause him to be physically weaker compared to his brother and to have a mindset that opposes brutality. Adam is unable to see how corrupt his father truly is, unlike his brother Charles, whose naturally dark and violent temperament allows him to see Cyrus’ true form. Similarly,…

“No one liked Cal very much and yet everyone was touched with fear of him and through fear with respect... Aron drew love from every side. He seemed shy and delicate”(Steinbeck 306). In East of Eden by John Steinbeck, the two twins, Cal and Aron Trask, are described as polar opposites. Cal is shown to be a more misunderstood character, and Aron is portrayed as a more welcomed character. Steinbeck renders their antithetical qualities by illustrating their rapports between other characters.…

Of Humans and Fate In reality, the world is not split up into heroes and villains, it is made up of humans and their choices. However, in East of Eden, Steinbeck blurs the line between fate and free will. We see numerous characters blindly walk a path they are not aware they are following. While there are times where Steinbeck shows us characters rebelling against fate, the novel ultimately comes back to its biblical plotline, and it is there we see the lack of the real beauty of humans -their…

Able not Angel Women are the mother, the wife, the object of infatuation, a symbol for something else, and a villain. She has been marked with the original sin, forever doomed to repent. She is to be ashamed off, brushed off, controlled. This is what the role of women has been written of as in a multitude of literature, but this is also how she is treated. She is never to be the hero; she is the only there to assistance him in his journey. There have been the occasional defiant of these tropes…

The story of Cain and Abel played a major part in the theme of East of Eden. The biblical tale of brotherhood jealousy was used to emulate the relationships between the “C-Characters” and the “A-Characters”. The story of Cain and Abel depicted two brothers fighting for the affection of God, which ends with Abel being murdered by Cain. Steinbeck uses this story to create the narrative that ends up pitting the “C-Characters” against the “A-Characters”, in which the A-Characters are usually on the…

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…

East of Eden is a novel written by acclaimed author, John Steinbeck. The story follows two families, the Trasks and the Hamiltons, and their intertwined lives in the years between the American Civil War in the 1860s and the Great Depression in the 1930s. Throughout the novel, the author recurrently uses religion through a series of biblical allusions that in turn reflect the context of the novel. In order to explore how context has informed the use of religion in Steinbeck’s East of Eden, one…

how men will surely triumph over their sin. As opposed to Timshel (“thou mayest”) which signifies how you — you have a choice upon your individual fate. As described within the Bible when God expresses to Cain whilst exiling him to the land of East of Eden. He then instructs Cain to triumph over sin; in Lee’s discovery, he encounters that Timshel is interpreted as “thou mayest” which provides how God tells Cain that he has a choice whether or not to overcome sin. Lee then describes this…

also gradually starts to follow death. As distinguished in the novel, East of Eden, death is perceived in many ways, which often dictates one's approach to life because some individuals approach death with a practical view while others have an idealistic view on death. Death is a reality that occurs in every individual life and the perspective of that individual towards death determines how they decide to live life. In East of Eden Steinbeck often compared Liza and Samuel Hamilton to their…