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East Of Eden Allusions

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From a young age, Steinbeck had encountered many hardships. Based off a few of his hardships, he created his novel East of Eden. It is told through the eyes of Olivia Hamilton’s son, who is as everyone comes to realize, John Steinbeck himself. Through Steinbeck’s experiences, the reader learns about two generations who deal with evil goodness within their families.
This story starts in Connecticut on a small town farm. Cyrus is with Adam’s mom, whose name is never learned, and has Adam Trask. Mrs.Trask later dies of suicide because she gets syphilis from Cyrus. Cyrus then meets Alice, who he marries. They then have Charles Trask. At this time, Cyrus studies military history that way he can lie about his time served to try and make himself …show more content…

Steinbeck’s novel includes many biblical allusions to liberate the theme. Based on the biblical story of Cain and Abel, East of Eden is set in California’s Salinas Valley. The reason for the setting is because this is where Steinbeck grew up. Steinbeck claims he wanted to write this story for his sons, but he also claims his life was pretty tough growing up, so he somewhat involved his life into the book. The story starts out explaining the Trasks brothers. One is quite evil while the other is pure good. This story is different as it has lots of many different themes. One of the main themes is free will, and how the two generations struggle with it. The story depicts the struggle Caleb and Charles have within. They have anger built inside of them and hate their own brothers, just like Cain did with his brother Abel. By the time Caleb and Charles realize they choose to be good, a death occurs. What Steinbeck is giving off by this story is do not wait too long to be good because something bad can always happen. The synopsis states that “this piece of work is a piece in which Steinbeck created his most mesmerizing characters and explored yet another enduring theme: the mystery of identity ; the inexplicability of love ; and the murderous consequences of love's

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In the novel “East ofela Eden,” the author John Steinbeck uses a biblical reference forshadowing the fate of each charicter. Notably, the reacurring names that starts with “A” and “C”, referring to Cain and Abel from the bible, the sons of Adam and Eve. Additionallt, Cain out of spite kills Abel because God accepts Abel’s offering rather than Cains. In the novel the charicters who are sinful have names that begin with C-Caleb, Cathy, Charles, and Cyrus and the “good” charicaters have names start start with A such as Adam, Aron, and Abra. Furthermore the relationship bewteen Cain and Abel is quite similar to Charles and Adam becuase Charles once tries to kill Adam.

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In East of Eden Steinbeck turns back to the ideals of the bible through some of his characters. A Lot of the bible ideas come with Adam Trask and the timshel he carries throughout the story. Adam's virtue comes into to help free his son Cal. In the story the Men view themselves as part of the natural world. Cal, felt since his mother was bad he had to follow her steps.

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