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The Theme Of Love In John Steinbeck's East Of Eden

735 Words3 Pages

Love’s Absence and Death’s Presence

The outcasts and the unloved grow to either become the protagonist or the antagonist of a story; Unlike in John Steinbeck’s novel East of Eden, rarely is there a Cathy simply filled with pure malevolence. What separates the good and evil characters? “Timshel” or “thou mayest,” as Lee the Chinese house servant puts it which means that the characters have a choice of which path they will take. But what if there is no choice for the character? Cal faces this lack of choice. His father has loved his twin brother Aron over him for his whole life for inexplicable reasons, and this lack of love has always hindered Cal. However, lying on his deathbed, Adam has the power to free Cal from this binding force that the absence of love holds on him. Lee watches and pleads, “Help him, Adam-help him. Give him his chance. Let him be free. That’s all a man has over the beasts. Free him! Bless him (Steinbeck 602)!” The absence of parental love leaves a hole only to be filled with hate, anger and death; without the blessing of love, Cal will die along with his father.
It was December 25th, Christmas morning. Instead of waking up to my little brother’s excited smile, I was met with a face of sorrow and fear. Andrew told me he was scared and he did not know what to do and he heard Alex crying …show more content…

These feelings eat away at the soul leaving the person abhorred and hollow. What can someone do when even their own creator doesn’t love them? They become the monster they were created to be. Whether the person is Cain, Cal, Charles or Alex, the predisposition towards evil has been ever present because of the lack of love’s presence. The first murder in the bible was not when Cain shed Abel’s blood; the first murder was when God killed Cain’s freedom by refusing to love

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In the novel, East of Eden by John Steinbeck, rhetorical devices are used to illustrate the characters throughout the book to be either be good or evil by the usage of diction, connotation and denotation as well as other rhetorical devices. By using rhetorical devices it allows the audience to gain a better deeper comprehension of the book. The rhetorical devices allow Steinbeck to describe the characteristics of each character to define them as either good or evil which allows the reader to analyze the parallels between one another. In addition, rhetorical devices for example metaphor, tone, diction, simile, imagery, analogy, allegory, and paradox contribute to the author’s style which creates an image for readers to comprehend. Steinbeck uses word choice, tone, anaphora to highlight the juxtaposition between Cathy Ames and Abra Bacon to illustrate how evil and goodness change the perspective about their inherent point.

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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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