Roman 1

Reid Roman

Walton 5

English 12

February 10, 2009

The Dichotomy Contrasted with the Reciprocal Nature of Good and Evil as Characterized by

John Steinbeck in his Work: East of Eden

“Her rash hand in evil hour Forth reaching to the fruit, she pluck'd, she eat; Earth felt the

wound, and Nature from her seat Sighing through all her works gave signs of woe That all was

lost.” – John Milton, Paradise Lost.

Since the beginning of time, the age-old struggle of good versus evil has intellectually

bludgeoned the masses. The ability to choose to sin or abstain, to capitulate or resist, renders

man concurrently the master and slave of his fate. The consequences of each, both positive and

negative, are great enough on both sides to force a man to truly evaluate to determine which

route he will take. Both are always viable options; seldom does a clear-cut choice present itself

to man. For since the fall, evil has been grafted into society, has become inextricable in its inner

workings. Good has existed since the beginning and was introduced by God himself. Even the

knowledge of their origins makes man’s choice no easier. The two paths play to different facets

of a man’s character, thus each in turn is equally appealing. This equivalence of appeal creates a

cycle in which both good and evil are participants, coexisting and to an extent perpetuating each

other’s designs. In the novel East of Eden, John Steinbeck intends to convey that man’s

inalienable free will and ability to choose his own destiny accompany the idea of the necessary

entrenchment and reciprocity of both good and evil in society.

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In the beginning, in the context of a conversation with Cain about sin, God issues an edict

in Genesis 4:7, acknowledging that sin will desire to conquer him, but commanding him to

master it. Steinbeck conjures a potential alternate translation, asserting instead of “thou shalt,”

“thou mayest.” Through this interpretation he suggests that God was giving us, the human

population as a whole, the opportunity to choose between life in sin and Life in Him. Warren

French states, “What matters is not what Steinbeck tells us about the Bible, but what he tells us

about his own philosophy through his use of the Bible” (2). Samuel Hamilton, the archetypal

voice of reason in the story, discusses the story of Cain and his murdering of Abel with Adam

Trask, the protagonist of the first half of the book. Lee, Adam’s servant who is also present at the

discussion, presents a new viewpoint on the old story. He muses, “I think this [story] is a chart of

the soul—the secret, rejected, guilty soul” (Steinbeck 271). Lee postulates that man’s guilt, from

his shortcomings and subsequent rejections, is the most powerful motivator in his life. To

succumb to this guilt, to lash out in anger at a fellow man, is to choose, as it were, to surrender to

the universal evil innate within all of us.

Lee, after the discussion with Samuel and Adam, seeks out some old Chinese scholars,

who, when presented with the story, take to learning ancient Hebrew with Lee for two years

before they finally attempt a new translation of the Genesis story. Lee relates the fruit of their

labor: “And this was the gold from our mining: ‘Thou mayest.’ ‘Thou mayest rule over sin.’ The

old gentlemen nodded and felt the years were well spent” (Steinbeck 303). He later imparts the

importance of this discovery, declaring:

Now, there are many millions in their sects and churches who feel the order, ‘Do thou,’

and throw their weight into obedience. And there are millions more who feel

predestination in ‘Thou shalt.’ Nothing they may do can interfere with what will be. But
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’Thou mayest’! Why, that makes a man great, that gives him stature with the gods, for in

his weakness and his filth and his murder of his brother he has still the great choice. He

can choose his course and fight it through and win. (303)

Self-evident in Lee’s eloquent rhetoric is Steinbeck’s ultimate purpose and theme for the book.

Man, fallen as he is, has always before him the choice between good, kindness, acting on reason

and proper judgement, and evil, malice, acting on impulse and being motivated by guilt. “The

philosophical word-splitting of Lee’s ancient Chinese scholars is acted out in Caleb’s effort to

understand the nature of this guilt, whether it be an inheritance or something he has control over”

(Peterson 80). This theme, of the ability to choose between good and evil, plays out in Adam’s

son, Caleb (Cal), in his various adventures and misdeeds.

Aron, Cal’s twin brother, dies as an indirect result of Cal’s actions. Corporal Kemp at the

recruiting office where Aron enlists states, “I say if they’re big enough they’re old enough.”

Aron is not yet eighteen, but, tortured by a new realization, he goes off to war and dies anyway.

Cal feels immense grief over the situation, for although his actions were committed with

malicious intent, he never foresaw their ultimate end and consequences. “Cal picked up the

telegram and read its bleak and dignified announcement… ‘Your brother is dead,’ [Lee] said.

‘Your father has had a stroke’” (Steinbeck 594). Adam, at the news of Aron’s death, convulses

and becomes bedridden. Before he kicks off he delivers an ultimatum to his surviving son, crying

“Timshel!” and then he dies (Steinbeck 602). Timmerman claims that “Lee’s timshel doctrine” is

undergirded by the “belief in seeing the true thing as it is, and seeing it whole in its life

environment” (Timmerman 5). Timshel is the choice; evil is to be mastered and good to be

attained, but the choice in that direction is a conscious decision. Man, in Steinbeck’s estimation,

is not condemned to good or to evil as a rite of birth. Though he may tend in one direction or the
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other, resultant from intrinsic personality and character traits, opportunity always remains for

upheaval. As Fontenrose explains, “In the ‘thou mayest doctrine, evil can be rejected and good

chosen. Good and evil are complementary” (Fontenrose 3). The complementary in this quote is

most nearly related to geometric definition of the word: basically to aggregate the two always

produces a constant value, therefore more of one equates to less of the other. In choosing good

man necessarily neglects evil, to the extent that he chooses good. The ultimate corollary to this

would be that man cannot be concurrently completely good and completely evil.

Once confronted with the decision, each character reacts differently. Some take no

stance, make no ultimate choice, and consequentially default to wickedness and evil, which “also

explains the ambiguity of good and evil [since] everyone reacts to evil in a different way,” and

their reactions are accompanied by “varying degrees of attraction or repulsion” (Timmerman 2).

Cyrus Trask, the abusive father of Adam and Charles, commits such a fallacy as a character. In a

flashback, while in the army, Cyrus “contracted a particularly virulent dose of the clap from a

Negro girl who whistled at him from under a pile of lumber and charged him ten cents”

(Steinbeck 15). Already married before this escapade, Cyrus returns home and transmits the

disease to his wife, who in turn commits suicide. Steinbeck highlights that evil actions have evil

consequences, and that both manifest ideals are self-perpetuating, in that good engenders more

good while evil does the same. The consequences are not always foreseeable, as earlier in the

case of Cal and Aron, and also with Cyrus and his suicidal wife. Again though, it is not a cycle,

in that there are finite actions and finite consequences, but the people that enact and see these

deeds enacted without a cognitive decision will fall in and continue to act in accordance with the

more instantaneously gratifying of the two, that being evil. Levant contributes, “Pure evil and

pure good cannot exist in the realized world where good and evil are intermixed…” (378).
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While not purely evil, Cyrus Trask demonstrates many evil qualities. Cyrus’s first wife

bore Adam before she died, and his second was the mother of Charles. Cyrus beat his obsession

with the military into the heads of his young sons:

He taught [his sons] the manual of arms when they could barely walk. By the time they

were in grade school, close-order drill was as natural as breathing and as hateful as hell.

He kept them hard with exercises, beating out the rhythm with a stick on his wooden leg.

He made them walk for miles, carrying knapsacks loaded with stones to make their

shoulders strong. He worked constantly on their marksmanship in the woodlot behind the

house. (19)

Further evidence of Cyrus’ grueling tendency to inflict evil not only upon himself but upon those

around him as well, Cyrus perpetuates the lie of his military experience by thrusting it upon his

children. As evidenced in the case of Cyrus, the only people that do evil are the people that

neglect to confront the decision. Steinbeck leaves it nebulous and ‘allows the reader to

determine’ which is the right and proper choice, but to choose at all is to reason and to in turn

decide to do good. Evil’s only followers are the losers who refuse to choose. Cyrus is governed

wholly by his own passions and desires, with no thought given to the greater good. Because he

can’t control his sexual desires, he hires a hooker; because he likes the military, he drills his sons

endlessly and needlessly. Cyrus says to Adam, “I love you better. I always have. This may be a

bad thing to tell you, but it’s true. I love you better” (Steinbeck 28). Cyrus’ emotion guides even

his parenting decisions; because he loves Adam more, he seeks out to kill Charles for beating up

Adam. Emotion and reason begin to take sides as well. Steinbeck attaches to evil the draw of

emotion, of intense feelings, whereas good is managed through more dispassionate and

objective, qualitative reasoning.

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The second character who neglects to make an objective moral choice is Cathy Ames

Trask, the whore wife of Adam. She too from birth is guided by her lusts and desires, though she

contrasts with Cyrus in that she is more calculating and conspiratorial. At age ten Cathy had

already taken to manipulating boys years older than her with her sexuality for her own personal

ends. “Cathy lay on the floor, her skirts pulled up…and beside her two boys about fourteen were

kneeling” (Steinbeck 76). As she grows older her schemes grow more intense and laden with evil

intentions. She burns down her house, with her parents inside: “‘No keys in the locks,’ the chief

said uneasily… He held up his trophies [the doorknobs and lock of the kitchen door]. Both bolts

stuck out” (Steinbeck 87). She kills her parents and runs away. Timmerman postulates that

Steinbeck operates under the belief that “evil is an inward force,” oriented toward itself, “that

sucks all things into itself in order to feed and perpetuate itself, and therefore evil is essentially

destructive…” (Timmerman 2). Later on the recurring theme of evil begetting evil manifests in

Catherine Amesbury’s (Cathy’s) interaction with Mr. Edwards, the whorehouse owner. “One day

a clipping came from the agency [Mr. Edwards] employed. It was an old newspaper account of a

fire from a small-town weekly” (Steinbeck 97). Upon his discovery of Cathy’s true character, he

takes her by train to the outskirts of a small town where he beats her and leaves her for dead. The

world of evil is dominated by unchecked emotion. Emotion in and of itself isn’t inherently evil,

but evil is necessarily emotional. Without the emotional component evil loses its appeal.

After being nursed back to health at the Trask farmhouse, Cathy consents to marry an

infatuated and unwitting Adam. Being wed, the two move out to the Salinas Valley in California,

where Cathy births the twins. Soon after the delivery, her evil boils up and over, and, with cold-

blooded malevolence, she unleashes her fury upon Adam. “She shot him. The heavy slug struck

him in the shoulder… He heard steps on the porch… and then he could hear her no more”
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(Steinbeck 202). Thinking and conniving does not equate to reasoning and evaluating. Rather

more precisely reasoning exists on multiple levels. Reasoning out an evil plan, as Cathy does

with frequency, does not necessarily involve reasoning on a philosophical, moral, and anagogical

level as to one’s position in and effect upon the universe. It is clear that Cathy never engages in

the latter. Leaving Adam’s house, Cathy, now Kate, reverts to her old sinful ways. “What

puzzles Faye [the madam of the whorehouse] is that this kid looks like a runaway girl except

she’s a… good whore” (Steinbeck 214). Cathy thinks, reasons, but only superficially and

temporally, to amass more evil reward, but with no real long term plans or benefits.

In another example, Charles, the brother of Aron and son of Cyrus, takes after his father

in his irrationality and his impulsivity. Being accustomed to superiority in all activities over his

brother, he is incensed when Adam “beat his brother at peewee” (Steinbeck 23). This event

marks a revolution in the relationship between the brothers. A new and previously latent side of

Charles’ personality emerges: “… as Adam lay unconscious on the ground Charles kicked him

heavily in the stomach and walked away” (Steinbeck 23). Charles cannot handle the feeling of

inferiority. Ultimately Charles already feels he has been shorted because his father does not love

him to the extent he does Adam, so Charles attempts to compensate by besting Adam in

everything else. “Steinbeck thought the story of jealousy and strife between siblings lay at the

basis of all neuroses” (Aubrey 1). A common theme emerges: no one acts out of sheer

emotionality to do good, only to do evil. The more emotional or unstable the character, the more

evil he or she exudes. Charles later beats up Adam again, but in this instance, as “Adam could

see the hatchet in his right hand,” he intended an act far more sinister. He was provoked this

second time by the discrepant emotions his father felt for him versus his brother. Again, the

greater the emotion, the greater the evil reaction, because reason therefore good must be pushed
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aside to make room for emotion. The plot progresses and more of the same emotion-evil problem

is displayed: “Suddenly Charles laughed… and he threw back the blanket to receive [Cathy]”

(Steinbeck 125). On Adam’s wedding night, the night Adam gets married, to Cathy, the woman

he marries, the very same night as their wedding, she sleeps with Charles, who is not Adam, but

rather his brother. Reason is absent from this interchange. It is wholly unjustifiable but for the

feelings and emotions that induce it, and that are product of it. But in the case of most humans,

emotion does not dominate the mind; it does not solely dictate decisions and actions. As

Fontenrose said of good and evil, “…they might be so balanced that if a man went too far either

way an automatic slide restored the balance,” the same applies to emotion and reason in the

microcosm of the mind, (Fontenrose 3). According to Steinbeck, neither good nor evil can be

fully done away with, and in fact each must exist in proportion, seemingly balancing each other

on opposite ends of the scale.

Steinbeck surely understands that man tends more toward balance and struggle, for into

his novel he introduces multiple conflicted characters whose internal turmoil allows for empathy

and further insight into the nature of the good/evil duality. Adam himself, whose actions would

classify him as one of the goodliest characters, makes mistakes in his judgements of others’

character and his comprehension of evil. He blinds himself to Cathy’s evil nature. His friend

Samuel perceives his flawed attempt to create an affected utopia, with Cathy as his Eve:

“[Samuel] went on [in his thoughts] to Adam’s dream of a garden like Eden and to Adam’s

adoration of Cathy” (Steinbeck 177). Emotions in Adam’s case do not necessarily foster evil, but

they allow for its continuation. His passion toward Cathy gives her free reign to be her evil self.

After “Samuel [strikes Adam] with a work-heavy fist,” Adam’s realizes the evil he has let live in

the past, along with the good work laid out for him in the future in the raising of his sons,
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(Steinbeck 259). “…[Samuel] decides to give Adam the choice between spiritual life and death

by forcing him to confront the truth about Cathy” (Peterson 72). Adam is a passive character. He

does not act, either out of emotion or reason, but he does think and feel. Parallel to his emotion,

his reason leaves way for good to be done, even if he himself is not the doer. In the debate

between activity and latency neither is elevated above the other. When action is taken, both good

and bad are done, whereas on the flipside neither is done; more specifically, passive characters

do not introduce either good or evil upon surrounding characters but what would befall them

regardless. The net negation in the novel is Steinbeck’s foiling of good characters with bad. The

morally neutral characters, like Adam, serve only to propagate the ends of others by whom they

are surrounded. This concept serves to further support the argument that good and evil seem to

feed on each other and to exist in equal parts in a fundamental balance.

Cal is the central character of the novel. His conflicted nature and his indecision make

him the most apt canvas upon which to paint the action and choices prescribed by the timshel

doctrine. Aron falls in love with Abra Bacon upon their first meeting, at which time he gives her

a box filled with a rabbit and a “surprise” letter asking her to marry him. Cal convinces Abra that

the letter is instead a snake; “I guess he’s looking around for it… It gets away” (Steinbeck 350).

Demonstrating a jealousy similar to that of Charles, Cal intentionally sabotages his brother’s

chances with Abra, not necessarily because he wants her for himself, but more as a way of

finding justice for the disproportionate praise that Aron receives as the fair-haired child.

Fontenrose sums up the point: “Steinbeck is using [Cal and Abra] to illustrate his thesis: that

there is good and bad in everyone, and that some bad is necessary…” (Fontenrose 4). One step

further, bad is necessary because bad is unconquerable; bad is fueled by laziness and lack of

restraint, concepts also very integral to society. The sheer number of people who have fallen into
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the trap of evil makes the task of converting them nigh impossible, for, as seen with Cathy, Cal,

Charles, and Cyrus, evil comes in many forms and to defeat such a force would require tailoring

and form-fitting the package of good so as to make it appealing in every case. Bad and evil,

therefore, are factored in to philosophy, religion, and most aspects of life, and so in that way it

has become necessary because it has become entrenched.

Staying true to the biblical story, Cal who is Cain prepares a gift to offer his father. Adam

has recently suffered a hefty financial loss as a result of an imprudent business endeavor, so Cal

takes Will Hamilton into confidence to work out a moneymaking scheme. “‘My father is good,’

he said. ‘I want to make it up to him because I am not good,’” (Steinbeck 481). Despite his

claims, he demonstrates that he is in fact capable of goodness and kindness through this action.

Peter Lisca, on the subject of the application of the biblical story, says, “The Cain and Abel

theme fares much better as it is worked out in Caleb, who inherits both good and evil and in

whom a genuine struggle takes place” (Lisca 268). Cal, as Steinbeck says, is “everyman;” he is

unquestionably the enactor of his own destiny. As a result he exhibits the aforementioned

balance, the rotation between good and evil. This story continues to track with the Bible’s; Adam

is impressed with Aron’s effort to educate himself by going to Stanford, but he spurns the

monetary gift given him by Cal. Outraged by the rejection of his intense labor and investment,

Cal feels the compulsion to take out his anger on his unassuming brother. He says, “I want you to

come with me. I want to show you something” (Steinbeck 546). Up to this point Aron did not

know the truth of their mother, but Cal takes the opportunity to enlighten him. Emotion and then

evil action: Cal is angry, Cal emotionally wounds Aron; yet further evidence of the tie between

emotion and evil. “The dark brother Caleb, spurred by the discovery of the truth of his mother,

begins to fancy himself evil. He proves, however, impervious to her [Cathy’s] witchery” (French
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3). Personalities vary, some people are more easily influenced and persuaded than others, but in

the end each person must decide for himself the ultimate path he is to take.

The process ends with the decision, whether to choose good or to choose evil. Granted all

sales are not final; the decision may be traded in for a newer, more enlightened model.

Kate/Cathy/Catherine ends her life at a crux, choosing suicide over the miserable existence she

has constructed for herself. She takes on a new bouncer, Joe Valery, whose purpose is constantly

to seek out and exploit flaws in Kate for his own personal gain. “…Joe looked for the

weaknesses on which he lived–vanity, voluptuousness, anxiety or conscience, greed, hysteria. He

knew they were there because she was a woman” (Steinbeck 502). Kate also suffers from severe

arthritis: “She could almost feel her joints thicken and knot” (Steinbeck 502). In the light of these

two and other inhospitable circumstances in her life, Kate decides that death is better. “Gingerly

she fished the chain out from her bodice, unscrewed the little tube, and… put the capsule in her

mouth” (Steinbeck 554). She has the capsule on a chain around her neck; understanding

accompanies evil. One cannot do evil without realizing what evil repercussions such evil will

inevitably precipitate, and so in Kate’s case she uses death as a safeguard. Shocked by the pain

she wreaks upon her sons, Kate stumbles upon the timshel decision. But she mayest not, because

the cumulative effect of her lifetime of evil is so massive and inertial that her only option is

copout. “Besides being individuals first and types second the characters… are also symbols”

(Krutch 370). Kate represents the life of evil, of not confronting the decision, of falling into

oblivion from the consequences of her sin.

Aron is a less extreme example of an ultimate and untimely choice for evil, but because

of his affected purity and naïveté, he seems to his guardians to have already made the decision

for good. Although Aron inherited his father’s good nature, he still falls in the end into the snare
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of evil. Abra, about Aron’s recent infatuation with the ministry, says, “If it’s church it’s got to be

high church. He was talking about how priests shouldn’t be married” (Steinbeck 496). Mistaken

by most onlookers, this new desire to be a minister has nothing to do with the good versus evil

debate; instead it only exhibits Aron’s personality as one that finds itself fully devoted to any

ideal it finds attractive. When he finds out his mother is a prostitute, his reaction is nearly the

opposite of Cal’s. “He who accepts his fallen state – the Ishmael who embraces full knowledge –

has the potential to survive in this world and, perhaps, to grow to greatness” (Owens 2). Aron

does not and cannot accept his own sinful nature, rather he is crushed and imagines the evil that

dwells inside him; so fleeing, he attempts to run from it. Just as Cal, Aron has inherited good and

evil, so in him should be a struggle and a crisis of choice just as Cal has. Aron differentiates

himself in that he is more impulsively emotional, while Cal is brooding and introspective. “…

initially presented as the ‘good brother,’ like Abel, [Aron] suddenly becomes the ‘wandering

brother,’ like Cain, as Steinbeck reverses the story” (Barnes 1). This emotion of Aron’s, as in

numerous previous examples, leads ultimately to his demise. The truth of his mother overwhelms

him so he runs away and dies. His and Cathy’s lives share a parallel in the pain that each caused

the other and the resultant death of both.

Emotion leads to evil which leads to death, while reason leads to good which leads to life.

As emotion and reason are balanced in the brain, so are life and death in society and good and

evil in nature. Humanity, small and insignificant as it is, seems to take the greatest role in God’s

play for the universe. In them the moral struggle occurs, and in them is innate immortality; each

shall after life continue to live. The evil that plagues man is a foe to be conquered, though never

vanquished. As emotion and reason play nearly equal parts in the mind of man, so do evil and

good. Man then is granted free will and the ability to choose to which he shall conform, but the
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objective observer would always view good as the better choice, as evil feeds merely on feelings

and emotions, and spawns consequences unforeseen.

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Works Cited

Aubrey, Brian. “Critical Essay on East of Eden.” Novels for Students, Thomson Gale Ed. 19.

(2004). Literature Resource Center. 7 November 2008 <http://galenet.galegroup.com/>.

Barnes, Rebecca. “Steinbeck’s East of Eden.” Explicator 55.3 (Spring 1997): 159. Humanities

International Complete. EBSCO. 9 November 2008 <http://search.ebscohost.com/>.

Fontenrose, Joseph. “Criticism by Joseph Fontenrose.” DISCovering Authors. (2003). Student

Resource Center – Gold. Gale. 7 November 2008. <http://galenet.galegroup.com/>.

French, Warren. “Chapter 10: East of Eden – California and the Cosmic California” John

Steinbeck. New York, NY: G. K. Hall & Company, 1999. 5 November 2008

<http://galenet.galegroup.com/>.

Levant, Howard. “John Steinbeck.” The Novels of John Steinbeck: A Critical Study.

Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Daniel G. Marowski, Roger Matuz. Vol. 45.

Detroit, MI: Gale Research Company, 1987. 370-371.

Lisca, Peter. The Wide World of John Steinbeck. Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers United Press, 1958.

Owens, Louis. “The Story of a Writing: Narrative Structure in East of Eden.” Rediscovering

Steinbeck: Revisionist Views of His Art, Politics, and Intellect. Lewiston, NY: Edwin

Mellen Press, 1989. 5 November 2008. <http://galenet.galegroup.com/>.

Peterson, Richard F. “Chapter 4: Steinbeck’s East of Eden.” A Study Guide to Steinbeck. Ed.

Tetsumaro Hayashi. Metuchen, New Jersey: Scarecrow Press, 1979. 63-83.

Steinbeck, John. East of Eden. New York, NY: Penguin Group, 1992.

Timmerman, John H. “Criticism by John H. Timmerman.” DISCovering Authors. (2003).

Student Resource Center – Gold. Gale. 7 November 2008

<http://galenet.galegroup.com/>.