East of Eden

The final chapters of East of Eden raise the novel’s tension—and lead to a resolution. Cathy has grown increasingly paranoid. Worried about the one woman she let get away with a secret about her, Cathy projects her anxieties onto the girls who work for her. Cathy may have lived her life as an expert manipulator, but living in sin has surrounded her with sinners—people who can and will try to take her down. She finally realizes that she won’t be safe anywhere. For the first time in her life, she must show vulnerability and place her trust in another person, Joe. However, Joe, like Cathy, is unreliable and immoral. Cathy can’t have friends or allies, only enemies. This is the type of life that Cathy has created for herself. She has no respect for the value of human life because she thinks she’s superior to others. Experience has confirmed to her repeatedly that she can take advantage of anyone she wants to. She always comes out on top. However, her physical malady of painful arthritis triggers fears of not being in control. As her body deteriorates, so does her mind.

Cathy finally meets her match when Cal brings Aron to meet her. Although she recognizes herself in Cal, she finds an unidentifiable quality in Aron. She knows that for an unquantifiable reason, she can’t beat these two people. Although they don’t necessarily pose her a threat, for Cathy it’s an existential crisis. Cathy is so evil that she can’t live in a world in which she knows she may not be able to exert power over everyone. Her death by suicide is a way for Cathy, an antagonist who refuses to let other people’s punishments, rules, and judgments tie her down, have the last word. That Cathy doesn’t die before she does one last thing to best her own son shows the level of her depravity. She recognizes the goodness in Aron and wants to destroy it by leaving him her brothel. Cathy exits the world the same way she entered and lived through it: alone. Steinbeck doesn’t explain the qualities in Aron and Cal that drove Cathy to her conclusion. Some things, Steinbeck’s silence suggests, are unknowable. Cathy, always methodical, finally meets an enemy for whom she has no strategy. Ironically, Cathy doesn’t know that she needn’t kill herself and leave her business to Aron to destroy him, because simply meeting her was enough to shatter Aron’s beliefs about the world. Aron allows Cathy’s image to curtail his life. In doing so, Aron proves himself Cathy’s son in that they both die alone, fleeing a reality they’d rather not deal with.

The unsettled nature of a rapidly developing western state was an ideal setting for Cathy. Surrounded by diversity, she could blend in as a “femme fatale” without drawing much more than ire for the prostitution trade. Since its inception, California has been home to an amalgam of different cultures and peoples. East of Eden subtly nods to the racism of that period. During World War I, people in the Salinas Valley community attack the home of Mr. Fenchel, a kind German man, driving him to tears, which demonstrates how war stokes tribal fears, misunderstanding, and disenchantment with society. A competitor to Cathy’s brothel is known only as “the N*****,” while Lee, who contains multitudes, is constantly dismissed as a “chink.” In a way, the setting is perfect for Cathy because she’s a misfit like many marginalized people. To be generous with this antagonist, one can acknowledge that she lived subversively. During this period, women didn’t leave their secure husbands and babies, and they didn’t own businesses that could compete against men. Although Cathy is irredeemably evil, Steinbeck acknowledges her hunger for freedom, a quality that is now widely celebrated in a woman but in the early 20th century was easy to villainize.

However, the central characters of the novel’s finale are Cathy’s sons, Aron and Cal. As the novel concludes, it explores more direct connections between the Trask story and the Bible. Adam rejects Cal’s money, a plot line equivalent to God rejecting Cain’s offer. Steinbeck draws this parallel to point out the arbitrariness of it all. When Adam tells Cal that he’d be happiest if Cal would just give him a good life, Steinbeck specifically identifies a desire that is vague and therefore unfulfillable. This dilemma helps Steinbeck emphasize the foolishness of men like Adam—men who take advantage and subtly abuse their power as fathers. Acknowledging and reciprocating the love that their sons expressed to them would have cost God, Cyrus, and Adam nothing. Instead, these three prominent father figures fixated on nothing at all. No wonder, then, that Cal, Charles, and Cain felt bitterly rejected. No real reason explains why these three literary characters couldn’t have received respect and care from their fathers. Ultimately, Adam breaks this vicious cycle when, on his deathbed, he forgives Cal.

As the idea of timshel dictates, Cal can be responsible only for his own actions, not for Aron’s. When asked where his brother is, Cal replies, “How do I know? [...] Am I supposed to look after him?” (562). This connects directly to the story of Cain and Abel. In Genesis 4.9, “the LORD said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother’s keeper?” Although brothers might have a responsibility to look out for one another, Cain asserts the same idea that Cal does: I am not responsible for him; I am responsible only for myself. The difference between this attitude and Cathy’s is that Cal genuinely cares deeply for his family. He loves with ferocity but has always been met with humiliation and rejection. Aron wants to live in a fantasy world yet then escape the reality of the world when he sees that it’s a dark place. However, that isn’t Cal’s responsibility. Here again, the issue of individual versus collective plays a major role in building judgment and/or empathy for Aron and Cal.

While others can easily blame Cal for what happens to Aron, Lee—always the voice of empathy and reason—intervenes, constantly reminding Cal that he isn’t unique. All humans have good and bad in them, and Cal is no better or worse than anyone else (though arguably better than Cathy, as are all the other characters). This characterization of Cal as an everyman is an important shift in the story. Adam Trask, a central character in the novel’s beginning to middle plot points, was never quite as sympathetic as one might have hoped. He remained lazy, entitled, and selfish through his old age. Cal, however, is someone to cautiously root for. Steinbeck uses Cal’s character to hold up a mirror: Cal is all of us, and we are all Cal. We all have good and bad inside us, which links us to Cal and to Cain. Cal agonizes over his self-perceived badness. His ultimate lesson is that perfection is unattainable, so it shouldn’t be the goal of a human being. Like many others, Cal does some good things and can do some truly mean things. He can only try to do his best and forgive himself when he fails at being good.

Resolution comes when Adam forgives Cal’s anger that pushed Aron into premature death. Ironically, Adam did to Aron what Cyrus did Adam. Adam put Aron on a pedestal because he graduated high school early and had a life goal in mind when he left for college, even though the truth is that Aron wanted to leave the university. Had Adam only seen that Aron was so good he was foolish, Adam could have provided Cal with a more stable and loving home life. However, Adam might never have shown favoritism toward Cal even if he knew about Aron’s dream to drop out of school and move to the Trask family farm in King City. Adam saw so much of his projected self in Aron that Adam likely would have favored Aron no matter how many more mistakes he made than Cal.

Adam can’t challenge Aron’s icon status, but Steinbeck, Abra, and Lee certainly do. Abra realizes that Aron will never truly grow up. He prefers to see the world as he wants it to be, not as it really is. Even though Cal can inflict more cruelties than Adam, the truth emerges that Cal is more realistic, better equipped to live in the world than Aron is. Thus, Steinbeck criticizes the lazy, entitled attitude of both Adam and Aron to emphasize that good people can be naive to the point of self-destruction. Cal must learn two important lessons before he can embrace timshel: Let go of his expectations for his father and accept both the good and the bad sides of himself. Cathy was partly right about one thing: All people have badness and only seem good because they try to cover it up. As Cal learns, covering up that bad side too much can lead to a blowup. However, he also learns that “good” people aren’t necessarily active contributors to their own lives or to the world around them. Steinbeck’s point about individuality is that only in individual creativity can people inspire one another. It’s good, then, that Cal has love for others but must balance that love with regret and disappointment.

As the story concludes, Cal is free of the shackles of his brother and his father. Although their deaths are an acute loss for him, he can now live life on his own terms—a life that doesn’t come second to a prettier twin. He finds love with Abra based on truly accepting one another—and the novel ends with Lee still at his side, his emotional mentor and best parent.