East of Eden Analysis

Yes, yes—we know that the first part of the novel takes place in Connecticut, but that's largely just setting the stage for when the action moves to the Eden of the story, i.e. that Paradise that...

Usually we here at Shmoop are against assuming that the narrator is the author. But East of Eden is a bit of an exception, because Steinbeck straight up tells you that he is a proud member of the i...

Family DramaIf you were to summarize East of Eden in one sentence, you would have to mention that it's about the Trasks and the Hamiltons. After all, this novel is riffing off of one of the oldest...

Could we have picked two words that were any more different? Probably not. But before you get all Jackie Chan on us, hear us out: we essentially mean that sometimes our narrator is wistful about th...

What do we mean by straightforward? We mean that Steinbeck doesn't beat around the bush. Subtlety is not his game, especially when it comes to characterization. Steinbeck doesn't show you how a cha...

No scouring the Internet for a reference here; the novel does the work for you when Lee reads from the Book of Genesis:"And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord and dwelt in the land of Nod...

PASCAL COVIVIDear Pat,You came upon me carving some kind of little figure out of wood and you said, "Why don't you make something for me?"I asked you what you wanted, and you said, "A box.""What fo...

The end of East of Eden can literally be summed up in one word: timshel. What is timshel, you ask? Is it something you find on the beach? Is it a type of pasta? Nope: it's a Hebrew word that Lee tr...

You might be tempted to read this novel as a story about two generations of fathers and sons. Be forewarned, though: this book has a lot more going on than some bonding issues. It wouldn't hurt to...

Meet the Trasks, Part IIn order for us to get the whole Adam-Eve/Cain-Abel allegory, we need to set the stage, introduce the players, and show what kind of baggage they're carrying. For that, we've...

A young hero falls under the shadow of a dark powerThat hero is Adam, and the dark power is Cyrus, who in this metaphor is God (and what an anti-God he makes, if we do say so). But the real dark po...

You might be wondering: if there are four parts to this book, how can it be divided into three acts? Fair question. Let's start with how Steinbeck breaks up the novel:Part One: The beginning of the...

East of Eden was the number-one best-seller in the country the year it was published, which was 1952.(Source)John Steinbeck appears as a character in his own novel. Call it egotistical, but it work...

Whores, brothels, circuses in brothels with whores—this book does not shy away from sex in the slightest. This means that when a character does something like, say, contracts gonorrhea (also ende...

Marcus Aurelius, The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius (51.1.103)Carl von Clausewitz (43.3.56)Dante's Inferno (47.3.2)Genesis 3-4 (everywhere)William James, The Principles of Psychology (17.2.40)Samue...