John Steinbeck's East Of Eden

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While reading the book of Genesis in the Bible and looking for names for Adam’s soon to be twin sons, Adam, Lee, and Samuel came across a controversial topic. “Are our lives predetermined or can we choose our own fate?” Lee located a version of the bible where God answers to Cain “thou shalt” which implies that He had promised that Cain would conquer sin. Another translation offered the words “do thou”, indicating God’s order to conquer sin. The last and oldest translation of this passage was in Hebrew, and in it, Lee found the words timshel which means “thou mayest.” This meant that Cain only possessed the potential to conquer sin. In East of Eden, Steinbeck incorporates the idea of timshel through the actions of his characters, the debate…show more content…
He also discovered that his mother was the Madam of a whorehouse. Cal determined that he hated his mother because he had her traits in himself; and therefore he blamed his evil actions on her. Lee responded to Cal blaming his evil actions on his mother by saying “You stop that!.. Of course you have that in you…don’t you dare take the easy way. It’s too easy to excuse yourself because of your ancestry… Whatever you do, it will be you who do it—not your mother” (Steinbeck 445). Through this, Lee carried in the debate of nature versus nurture. Was Cal evil because his mother was evil, or was Cal evil because he chose to be jealous towards his beloved brother? Cal struggled throughout the story with this idea, but Cal was not the only one who showed signs of mixed ancestry. Aron also did things that his mother did when she consumed alcohol. Cal says, “…when Aron cried and fought at the same time he was dangerous. Nothing could hurt him and nothing could stop him” (Steinbeck 335). The twins had both, their mother’s evil blood and their father’s honest blood coursing through them. These two bloods conflicted, but it could be argued whether this inheritance is truly to blame for the boys’ differences. Just as Steinbeck showed timshel through ancestry, he also showed it through guilt and

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