A literary Analysis of East of Eden by John Steinbeck

A detailed Summary of A literary Analysis of East of Eden by John Steinbeck

In Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, the word love is defined as a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person. Love can bring two people together but it can also have a person be rejected by another because of love. In the novel East of Eden by John Steinbeck, the main character, Adam Trask, confronts a feeling of love throughout the whole book but he either rejects the love of people who care about him or has his love rejected by the people that he cares about. When Adam was a young man in the beginning of the novel, his father, Cyrus Trask loved him but Adam did not love him back and when Adam went into the army he did not come back home until his father's death. Later on in the story Adam really loved his wife, Cathy, but she didn't love him back and so when she tried to leave him and he would not let her, she shot him. Even though Adam survived he was demoralized for most of his life because he still loved her. Through Adam's experiences of love in the novel, John Steinbeck shows that Adam Trask has an inability to handle love.

When he first appears in the novel, Adam Trask is a young man who is not loved by his brother or mother but only

As the novel progresses, Adam meets his one true love but she in contrast does not love him back. Adam meets Cathy Ames and then after a while he marries her but she, does not really marry him. "He breathed harshly. 'I already been with a whore.' 'You're a pretty strong boy. Move over a little.' 'How about your broken arm?' 'I'll take care of that. It's not your worry.' Suddenly Charles laughed. "The poor bastard," he said, and he threw blanket to receive her" (125). Cathy shows that she does not love Adam because she goes and sleeps with his brother. This is showing that Cathy is rejecting

Throughout the whole novel Adam Trask struggles with theme of love, and the author John Steinbeck shows Adam's inability to handle love. At first, his father loves Adam but Adam does not love him back. Then as Adam gives his love out to Cathy and Aron, they reject it like it was not even there; and when Aron and Cathy die at the end and Adam realizes that only Cal did love him, he does not praise him but only tells him timshel which means thou mayest. Steinbeck, throughout the whole novel showed what love can do to people and how rejection can imply on the ability of handling love but at the end you still ask yourself: What is love? According to East of Eden, there is no answer.

Later in the story, Adam builds a binding love between his two twin sons, except there is only one problem in the love that Adam builds. Adam really loves his good son Aron and rejects his dark son Caleb, when Aron begins to hate Adam and Caleb begins to really love him. When the Trask family move to Salinas, Adam tries to have an iceberg lettuce traveling company. His idea fails and so everyone at school calls Aron Lettuce Head; Aron never forgave Adam. "Suddenly Aron broke down. 'I want to go away. It's a dirty t

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Approximate Word count = 1210
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English