Essays on East of Eden

With its intricate, complex plot infused with an abundance of emotional turmoil, John Steinbeck’s East of Eden is indeed successful in fulfilling its author’s intention to rip a reader’s “nerves to rags.” As one finally becomes satisfied with the novel’s progression, Steinbeck orders a dramatic...

“Sexuality with all its attendant yearnings and pains, jealousies and taboos, is the most disturbing impulse humans have” (Steinbeck 75). To Cathy Ames, a seductively charismatic sociopath, sexuality and the vulnerability that accompanies it is the biggest downfall of humans. She discovers the key to...

John Steinbeck’s East of Eden was published in the 1950’s, a time when having a large family was a virtue and a source of comfort. Given the devastating psychological effects of World Wars I and II and the growing fear of the Cold War, people...

The plot of Steinbeck’s East of Eden has the issue of money tightly woven in with the stories of most of the main characters. On the surface money seems to be accepted by the society and serves as the solution to all problems; on numerous...

In 1950’s America, women were ensnared in suffocating gender roles. It was a retroactive decade in feminist history compared the power women had in the work force in the 1940s and the progression to come in the 1960s. Bound to the home and pressured by...

Good will always triumph over evil. If you believe that good things will happen to you then they will. East of Eden, a novel by John Steinbeck, challenges this idea by forcing his audience to read then discuss unpopular or controversial topics with themselves. Further,...

East of Eden, written by John Steinbeck, is a complicated retelling of the biblical story of Cain and Abel, focused around the overall struggle between evil and good. This was first seen in Adam and Charles Trask, followed by Adam’s sons, Aron and Cal Trask....

East of Edens, the author John Stienbeck uses a narrator conducting a hopeless and desperate tone comidating before a critical change of Adam’s relationship towards another. Before the critical outcomes of Adam the tone of hopelessness and desperation can show a relationship that intertwines with...