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Essay On Good And Evil In John Steinbeck's East Of Eden

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Good and Evil in East of Eden Everyone knows that they have a choice a choice of whether to do good or evil. As Steinbeck said himself “As for that struggle between good and evil in human history, there is no other story.” Within John Steinbeck’s book East of Eden the main theme which is really pronounced is the choice between good and evil. Mr. Steinbeck conveys this theme by using various literary devices. The obvious literary conflict in this story is man vs man. At first it’s Charles vs Adam then later on it becomes Aaron vs Cal (Adam’s sons). Due to the fact that one of each pair had committed a terrible choice reveals the main theme. “Adam crawled quietly into the water, being very careful to make no splash. Charles …show more content…

Where The Salinas Valley is represented as The Land of Nod and Charles and Adam suffer because of their wrong doings. This also applies to Adam's children. Dramatic Irony can be shown in almost every main “good person” in the story such as Adam and (his son) Aaron. Both characters were shown as good people, however, the honest Adam lived his whole life on the stolen fortune of his father, just as his son Aaron lived his life on a fortune made through prostitution. Character types in this story is a vital part considering that Adam and Aaron are both for the most part flat character types and Charles and Cal are both dynamic character types. If any of the characters changed to doing only the right or wrong thing the theme would not be clear. This story seems to also have an allusion within it. This story seems to make a reference to Cain and Abel. Charles was jealous of Adam because their father Cyrus favored Adam over him and same with Cal and Aaron when Adam favored Aaron over Cal. There seems to be a motif in the four main characters. Back to the allusion of Cain and Abel the first letters of each their names is also the first letter of their corresponding representation just like Cain to Charles and Cal and Abel to Adam and

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