For my final blog on East of Eden, I will talk about the third important Biblical parallel in the book: the relationship between father and son. More specifically speaking, the parallel is about a parent’s rejection of one child and the favoring of another.
Most of us are familiar with the story of Cain and Abel in the Bible, but let’s refresh to clarify the point. Adam (first guy) had two sons, Cain and Abel. God, however, is the real father figure to the two boys. When the boys are older, they both bring sacrifices to God. For no apparent reason, God prefers Abel’s gift above Cain’s. Cain, enraged and jealous, kills Abel in the wilderness. God, in turn, banishes Cain to the land east of Eden (wow that sounds familiar don’t it?).
So on to the novel. Like in the Bible, the father figures (Cyrus and Adam) favor one son over the other. Cyrus’s situation closely mirrors the story of the Bible. Both of his sons bring him presents on his birthday: Adam a stray puppy he found, Charles a knife he saved for and bought. Steinbeck actually even directs us to be sympathetic for Charles in this section because Charles really works for his present and is rejected by his father. Ironically, though, Adam says at one point that he was frustrated with God when reading that section of the Bible.
Later on, Adam reenacts the same situation with his own sons. For their whole lives, Adam favors Aron over Cal. Again we are lead toward sympathizing with the Cain character in the story. From the beginning, we don’t like Aron because of his naivety, helplessness, and cowardice. Cal, on the other hand, works hard to stay on a straight path and is the older brother type, looking out for Aron even to the point where he keeps the secret of their mother’s true identity. Even so, Adam still favor Aron over Cal. :ike God, Adam favors the one son over the other for no obvious reason. After Aron dies, Adam outwardly blames Cal, still oblivious to how blindly he favored his one son over the other. Indeed, he doesn’t even treat Cal like a son. Also, it wasn’t really Cal’s fault that Aron died. Aron still made the choice to go into the army. Cal caused Aron’s break down, but it is unfair to say that Cain’s murder and Cal’s revealing of his mother’s identity are exactly the same, even if they had similar cruel intentions. Finally, though, Cal is given his happy ending with Abra and with Adam’s blessing on his deathbed. In a way, he is freed of the Cain curse of sin and discrimination.
Lastly, I want to respond to Mr. Coon’s comment on my blog last week. He asked if Cathy as more of a figure that was meant to represent Cain in the novel rather than evil human nature itself. I personally still think she is more an embodiment of human evil. Cain felt rejected by God and was jealous of Abel, so he killed him. He had motivation for what he did, bad motivation but still. Cathy doesn’t seem to have a reason for any of the bad things she does. We don’t know anything about her parents except for that she killed them. So there’s nothing there to compare her to Cain. Because her evil is so inhumane and she acts without any apparent guilt or motivation, I think it is hard to compare her to Cain. It would almost be doing Cain an injustice to do so. Cathy is evil for the sake of being evil. (607)
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Monday, April 21, 2008
I Will Follow You into the Dark
According to Stafford’s poem “Traveling Through the Dark,” the lives of dozens of drivers are more important than the life of a single baby deer. I would definitely agree, but it’s still natural to hesitate to condemn a fawn to death. The speaker of the poem faces this same moral conflict and chooses to protect other drivers. Stafford uses the broken-up form and imagery to make this moral conflict more powerful by putting readers inside the tragedy of the scene.
Stafford uses a carefully laid-out form to present the speaker’s moral dilemma. The format follows the an outline of eighteen lines organized in four quatrains with a concluding couplet. The poem has no rhyme scheme but has lots of similar sounding words to end lines as well as interspersed alliteration. Even so, the structure is ideal because it allows the dilemma to be presented slowly and therefore immerses the reader in the story.
In the first and second stanzas, we are introduced to the moral conflict in a benign way so don’t question the speaker as he prepares to throw the dead deer in the canyon. We aren’t lead to question the “usually best” way of handling the problem at all. In the third stanza, however, we realize the situation is more complicated when the speaker realizes the dead doe’s fawn is still alive inside her. In the fourth stanza, the tension builds as we and the speaker wonder what he’ll do now that he would be taking a life himself. In the concluding couplet, in English sonnet style, the speaker’s moral dilemma is cleared and he decides to roll the deer into the canyon in order to save other people driving on the road. Stafford uses the English sonnet form to break up this progression, which allows the reader to process the moral dilemma fully and be more immersed in the speaker’s conflict as it progresses. As we read the poem, we follow the same line of thought as the speaker and, like him, conclude that the right thing to roll the deer into the canyon.
Stafford also uses imagery to touch several of our senses and immerse us in the poem’s story and conflict. Firstly, he prods our sense of sight with descriptions of the mountain road. We can picture the road so narrow that “to swerve might make more dead;” the “glow of the tail light,” and the plump figure of the dead doe. He also stimulates our sense of touch. The sadness of the speaker’s predicament becomes more real when we can nearly feel the warmth of the fawn within the doe’s cold body and the warmth of the car’s exhaust. The final sense he arouses to submerge us in the poem is the sense of hearing. In the decisive moment of the poem, we can “hear the wilderness listen” as if waiting to hear the fawn’s fate while the car engine purrs in the background. We can feel the cold and suspense. The imagery makes the poem feel real and we hesitate with the speaker as the sadness of the moment becomes clear.
With any ethical dilemma, the inner-conflict is always hardest for the people involved. By using detailed imagery and pointed structure, Stafford puts us in the speaker’s shoes and forces us to enter in the same internal conflict. Because of the imagery, we are there on the mountain road with the swallowing silence and helpless fawn. The structure allows us to process the scene and the conflict without losing us in a feuding or hurried stream of consciousness. Our reading experience mirrors the speaker’s experience as we are all forced to make a heartbreaking decision to choose many lives over one. (620)
Stafford uses a carefully laid-out form to present the speaker’s moral dilemma. The format follows the an outline of eighteen lines organized in four quatrains with a concluding couplet. The poem has no rhyme scheme but has lots of similar sounding words to end lines as well as interspersed alliteration. Even so, the structure is ideal because it allows the dilemma to be presented slowly and therefore immerses the reader in the story.
In the first and second stanzas, we are introduced to the moral conflict in a benign way so don’t question the speaker as he prepares to throw the dead deer in the canyon. We aren’t lead to question the “usually best” way of handling the problem at all. In the third stanza, however, we realize the situation is more complicated when the speaker realizes the dead doe’s fawn is still alive inside her. In the fourth stanza, the tension builds as we and the speaker wonder what he’ll do now that he would be taking a life himself. In the concluding couplet, in English sonnet style, the speaker’s moral dilemma is cleared and he decides to roll the deer into the canyon in order to save other people driving on the road. Stafford uses the English sonnet form to break up this progression, which allows the reader to process the moral dilemma fully and be more immersed in the speaker’s conflict as it progresses. As we read the poem, we follow the same line of thought as the speaker and, like him, conclude that the right thing to roll the deer into the canyon.
Stafford also uses imagery to touch several of our senses and immerse us in the poem’s story and conflict. Firstly, he prods our sense of sight with descriptions of the mountain road. We can picture the road so narrow that “to swerve might make more dead;” the “glow of the tail light,” and the plump figure of the dead doe. He also stimulates our sense of touch. The sadness of the speaker’s predicament becomes more real when we can nearly feel the warmth of the fawn within the doe’s cold body and the warmth of the car’s exhaust. The final sense he arouses to submerge us in the poem is the sense of hearing. In the decisive moment of the poem, we can “hear the wilderness listen” as if waiting to hear the fawn’s fate while the car engine purrs in the background. We can feel the cold and suspense. The imagery makes the poem feel real and we hesitate with the speaker as the sadness of the moment becomes clear.
With any ethical dilemma, the inner-conflict is always hardest for the people involved. By using detailed imagery and pointed structure, Stafford puts us in the speaker’s shoes and forces us to enter in the same internal conflict. Because of the imagery, we are there on the mountain road with the swallowing silence and helpless fawn. The structure allows us to process the scene and the conflict without losing us in a feuding or hurried stream of consciousness. Our reading experience mirrors the speaker’s experience as we are all forced to make a heartbreaking decision to choose many lives over one. (620)
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Seprpent, Thy Name is Woman
As those who are familiar with the Bible know, Eve was the woman who put the stain of sin on the human race. As you may recall, while still living in the Garden of Eden, Eve came upon a serpent near the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (there’s a name for you). Adam and Eve had been forbidden by God from eating from this tree but, as we all know, the serpent convinced Eve to take fruit from the tree and eat it. When God found out that she and Adam had eaten the fruit, he banished Adam and Eve from Eden. (On a side note, banishment was a common punishment in the Bible as God also banished Cain to live east of Eden, so there’s the true story of the title).
Now to the untrained eye, the East of Eden character Cathy Ames may seem like the parallel to Eve in the novel. Eve, however, had redeeming qualities: mother of mankind, for example. Cathy has none. Everything we learn about her in novel suggests she has nothing resembling a conscience nor does she do anything to help other people. Eve had no instinct for sin until the serpent actually suggested it. Cathy, on the other hand, commits evil for no reason or sometimes just to entertain herself (like when she sleeps with her husband’s brother). Cathy accepts sin as inevitable and therefore just embraces it in everything she does.
Eve’s sin was also not a malicious sin but a sin of curiosity. Cathy’s sins, on the other hand, are all malicious and none can rightfully be attributed to human instinct. She attempts to kill her unborn children, shoots her husband, and abandons her infant twins. We even learn that she killed her parents before joining a brothel in Massachusetts. She doesn’t seem to do these things because it was part of a certain agenda, but just because she could. The same can be said about her actions when she arrives at the brothel. Just as she exploits Adam’s good nature early in the novel, she exploits the semi-good nature of Faye, the madam at the brothel, who takes her in as a sort of apprentice. She cruelly poisons her and takes control of the brothel. We don’ really learn why, she just does it because she can.
Cathy is easily the most evil character in the novel, so how can she be a parallel to Eve? Eve may have committed the original sin of humanity, but it was, despite the title of sin, fairly innocent. Cathy murders and attacks people at the very heart of their existence. She is actually such a terrible person, that critics argue that she is a flaw in Steinbeck’s novel. She is an unrealistic character, they say, since she is just so cruel for absolutely no reason. I believe that Steinbeck was actually dead on in his depiction of Cathy. The critics have the mistaken impression that Cathy, like Eve, needs to have motives or guilt for her evil. I theorize, however, that Cathy is actually the embodiment of evil in the novel, not the embodiment of human sin. Cathy is not the character who shows us what sin is and how it punishes humanity. Cathy is the character who shows us the true face and depth of evil. It’s too simple to assume that Cathy would be Eve’s parallel since she is Aron and Cal’s mother. She is no parallel to a humanly flawed, apple-eating mother of humanity. She is the parallel to the snake, evil itself. (595)
JStor Articles:
John Steinbeck: Novelist as Scientist
http://www.jstor.org/stable/1345452
Human Relations in Literature
http://www.jstor.org/stable/813685
The Friend at the Round Table: A Note on Steinbeck's ActsThe Friend at the Round Table: A Note on Steinbeck's Acts
http://www.jstor.org/stable/2924782
Now to the untrained eye, the East of Eden character Cathy Ames may seem like the parallel to Eve in the novel. Eve, however, had redeeming qualities: mother of mankind, for example. Cathy has none. Everything we learn about her in novel suggests she has nothing resembling a conscience nor does she do anything to help other people. Eve had no instinct for sin until the serpent actually suggested it. Cathy, on the other hand, commits evil for no reason or sometimes just to entertain herself (like when she sleeps with her husband’s brother). Cathy accepts sin as inevitable and therefore just embraces it in everything she does.
Eve’s sin was also not a malicious sin but a sin of curiosity. Cathy’s sins, on the other hand, are all malicious and none can rightfully be attributed to human instinct. She attempts to kill her unborn children, shoots her husband, and abandons her infant twins. We even learn that she killed her parents before joining a brothel in Massachusetts. She doesn’t seem to do these things because it was part of a certain agenda, but just because she could. The same can be said about her actions when she arrives at the brothel. Just as she exploits Adam’s good nature early in the novel, she exploits the semi-good nature of Faye, the madam at the brothel, who takes her in as a sort of apprentice. She cruelly poisons her and takes control of the brothel. We don’ really learn why, she just does it because she can.
Cathy is easily the most evil character in the novel, so how can she be a parallel to Eve? Eve may have committed the original sin of humanity, but it was, despite the title of sin, fairly innocent. Cathy murders and attacks people at the very heart of their existence. She is actually such a terrible person, that critics argue that she is a flaw in Steinbeck’s novel. She is an unrealistic character, they say, since she is just so cruel for absolutely no reason. I believe that Steinbeck was actually dead on in his depiction of Cathy. The critics have the mistaken impression that Cathy, like Eve, needs to have motives or guilt for her evil. I theorize, however, that Cathy is actually the embodiment of evil in the novel, not the embodiment of human sin. Cathy is not the character who shows us what sin is and how it punishes humanity. Cathy is the character who shows us the true face and depth of evil. It’s too simple to assume that Cathy would be Eve’s parallel since she is Aron and Cal’s mother. She is no parallel to a humanly flawed, apple-eating mother of humanity. She is the parallel to the snake, evil itself. (595)
JStor Articles:
John Steinbeck: Novelist as Scientist
http://www.jstor.org/stable/1345452
Human Relations in Literature
http://www.jstor.org/stable/813685
The Friend at the Round Table: A Note on Steinbeck's ActsThe Friend at the Round Table: A Note on Steinbeck's Acts
http://www.jstor.org/stable/2924782
Friday, April 11, 2008
Is it only East of Eden becuase of the repeating vowels? Why not north?
Given the title of the novel, it's pretty obvious that East of Eden is going to follow an interesting biblical pattern. From very early on in the book we can see that certain characters parallel biblical characters in many more ways than just their names.
Adam’s biblical counterpart, obviously enough, is Adam from the Garden of Eden story in the Bible. Steinbeck seems to give Adam to us as a starting point: “Ok same name, same qualities, if nobody else, they’ll figure him out.” Adam, like his biblical counterpart, has two sons (again with the similar names) and a wife who, in the end, leads to his downfall. In many ways, Adam is too idealistic and innocent. He falls for a downright evil woman and is too blind to see the danger that lives inside her. It’s also important to note that Adam also fits the Abel role in the first generation Cain and Abel parallel. He is the “good son” compared to his brother Charles after all. But throughout the novel, he more largely plays the role of Adam, the father of two seemingly polar opposite sons.
Adam’s son Aron is the second generation Abel of the Cain and Abel parallel. Like his father and biblical parallel, Aron is the good son. He works hard and has a good heart. His father also has a large and obvious preference for him over his brother Cal—just as God and Adam favored Abel in the Bible. However, Aron has the same flaws as his father; he is too idealistic, crippling him by making him morally hypersensitive. That sensitivity is ultimately Aron’s downfall and he is eventually killed as a twisted result, realizing his paralleled destiny of a young death. The knowledge that his mother runs a brothel and left his family is too much for his idealistic mind and he, for all intensive purposes, kills himself by enlisting in the army during World War I. Like Abel, Aron dies because of his overly good qualities and the intense jealousy of his brother.
Adam’s son Cal (note the Aron-Abel, Cain-Cal name relationship) is the second generation parallel to Cain. Like Cain to Abel, Cal is intensely jealous of his twin brother and cannot compete with his extremely likeable brother. He is looked down upon by the people around him because of his manipulative and mischievous behavior and he is dubbed the “bad son” at an early age. He seems to have inherited his mother’s sin (just as Cain inherited the inevitable sin of man from Eve). Like Cain, Cal directly causes his brother’s death by setting Aron up to discover their mother’s true identity. His pivotal line “Am I supposed to look after him,” an obvious allusion to the famous “Am I my brother’s keeper” line from the Bible. Clearly, Cal is meant to parallel the infamous Cain, a comparison that allows the deeper meaning of Cal’s story to come to life.
We’ve shown that Cal is an obvious parallel to the biblical character of Cain, who likewise kills his brother out of jealousy and is forever tainted by the sin of humanity. The people around him write him off as his mother’s child and therefore incapable of being a good person. But Cal differs from Cain in extremely important ways. Cal wants to live a moral life, unlike Cain. He even prays to God to lead him on the path to good. By the end of the novel, he excepts the idea of timshel, that everyone can choose his or her own moral destiny, despite who they are or who their parents are. Unlike the other characters in the novel, Cal does not fully fulfill his biblical destiny. He instead becomes the one character to break out of the parallel and determine his own life. As the most doomed and redeemed character, he becomes the instrument by which Steinbeck sends his central message: everyone, no matter who they are related to or what they are destined to do, can make their own decisions and can live the life that they choose. (681)
Adam’s biblical counterpart, obviously enough, is Adam from the Garden of Eden story in the Bible. Steinbeck seems to give Adam to us as a starting point: “Ok same name, same qualities, if nobody else, they’ll figure him out.” Adam, like his biblical counterpart, has two sons (again with the similar names) and a wife who, in the end, leads to his downfall. In many ways, Adam is too idealistic and innocent. He falls for a downright evil woman and is too blind to see the danger that lives inside her. It’s also important to note that Adam also fits the Abel role in the first generation Cain and Abel parallel. He is the “good son” compared to his brother Charles after all. But throughout the novel, he more largely plays the role of Adam, the father of two seemingly polar opposite sons.
Adam’s son Aron is the second generation Abel of the Cain and Abel parallel. Like his father and biblical parallel, Aron is the good son. He works hard and has a good heart. His father also has a large and obvious preference for him over his brother Cal—just as God and Adam favored Abel in the Bible. However, Aron has the same flaws as his father; he is too idealistic, crippling him by making him morally hypersensitive. That sensitivity is ultimately Aron’s downfall and he is eventually killed as a twisted result, realizing his paralleled destiny of a young death. The knowledge that his mother runs a brothel and left his family is too much for his idealistic mind and he, for all intensive purposes, kills himself by enlisting in the army during World War I. Like Abel, Aron dies because of his overly good qualities and the intense jealousy of his brother.
Adam’s son Cal (note the Aron-Abel, Cain-Cal name relationship) is the second generation parallel to Cain. Like Cain to Abel, Cal is intensely jealous of his twin brother and cannot compete with his extremely likeable brother. He is looked down upon by the people around him because of his manipulative and mischievous behavior and he is dubbed the “bad son” at an early age. He seems to have inherited his mother’s sin (just as Cain inherited the inevitable sin of man from Eve). Like Cain, Cal directly causes his brother’s death by setting Aron up to discover their mother’s true identity. His pivotal line “Am I supposed to look after him,” an obvious allusion to the famous “Am I my brother’s keeper” line from the Bible. Clearly, Cal is meant to parallel the infamous Cain, a comparison that allows the deeper meaning of Cal’s story to come to life.
We’ve shown that Cal is an obvious parallel to the biblical character of Cain, who likewise kills his brother out of jealousy and is forever tainted by the sin of humanity. The people around him write him off as his mother’s child and therefore incapable of being a good person. But Cal differs from Cain in extremely important ways. Cal wants to live a moral life, unlike Cain. He even prays to God to lead him on the path to good. By the end of the novel, he excepts the idea of timshel, that everyone can choose his or her own moral destiny, despite who they are or who their parents are. Unlike the other characters in the novel, Cal does not fully fulfill his biblical destiny. He instead becomes the one character to break out of the parallel and determine his own life. As the most doomed and redeemed character, he becomes the instrument by which Steinbeck sends his central message: everyone, no matter who they are related to or what they are destined to do, can make their own decisions and can live the life that they choose. (681)
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