East Of Eden Character Analysis

Daniel Moreland

Mrs. Miller

AP Literature

I attest that the following work is solely my own, and that I have not borrowed, copied, cheated, or plagiarized.

East of Eden Character Analysis:

In John Steinbeck’s novel, East of Eden, many characters are used and developed throughout the story. Similar to the plot, many characters fall into similarity with biblical characters. Catherine Ames is a main character who is considered to be evil and shows similarities to the Serpent from the book of Genesis and Satan himself. Steinbeck goes the distance to call Cathy a monster in our introduction to her as a character. Cathy begins her evil ways at a young age, later developing them and becoming more of a monster than anticipated. She is so evil that

As a child may be born without an arm, so one may be born without kindness or the potential of conscience,” (Steinbeck 71). This is the quote that Steinbeck starts chapter 8 off, as a way to describe Cathy. The town Cathy lived in as a child saw her as an innocent child. When she murdered her family, she broke into a safe where the family kept their money and took the money. The town people were unable to find her remains, however her parents remains were identified. Steinbeck says, “If it had not been for Cathy’s murder, fire and robbery might have been a coincidence. Then it occurred to people that without Cathy’s body you couldn’t prove anything even though you thought she was dead,” (Page 88). Cathy also ends up driving her Latin professor to commit suicide by toying with his affections. As the story continues, Cathy meets Charles and Adam. She ends up marrying Adam but drugs him into a deep sleep and has sex with Charles. She winds up pregnant with twins, however it is unsure whether they are Adam’s or Charles’ kids. Cathy runs away after the kids are born and joins a whorehouse and in the process, changes her name to Kate Albey. Kate takes over the whorehouse by poisoning her predecessor Faye. Eventually Kate is visited by Charles, who is disgusted with her. She reveals her plans to him and he leaves after offering her $50,000 left by Charles who died, in which she denies the offer. She