East Of Eden Analysis

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From John Steinbeck’s writings and novels, he has revealed many lessons specifically towards the innocence and evil of mankind. In his book East of Eden, Steinbeck tugs with the ideas between good and bad through similar conflicts that relate to people’s real life conflicts today. As death comes to close humans’ lives, the question of their reflection on their goodness becomes its strongest, contemplating “Have I done all I could? Or, did I skimp through the most important challenges?” The great author of Mice and Men has focused mainly on that idea of individuals being deemed as innocent or maleficent only after death. With different revelations in different periods, society can determine whether someone has lived a life full of righteousness…show more content…
Whether the purposes would be having none at all, to having the purpose to achieve all that could be reached, people strive to achieve it, focusing on that purpose as the reflection of themselves being good or bad. As life moves on, people may face purposes differently and can be changed as time moves on. For instance, Cal, a character in Steinbeck’s East of Eden, portrays his purpose to get his father to love him equally as much as his favored brother Aaron. As Cal faces rejection after his attempt to please Adam, his father, he infers that his purpose was to always be mean and full of hatred. But as his father dies, he releases Cal of his evil nature by saying “Timshel” (Steinbeck 601)! the reference of having one’s own capability in the story of Cain and Abel. As Cal started his life full of loneliness and frustration, he thinks that by failing his purpose to please his father, he has no choice but to live as a man who cannot demonstrate holiness. But even before death, Cal was taught that he could change his demeanor and live a life being good instead of evil. During death, people may reflect as all of their actions as one conclusion to their being of good or bad. But even with a present full of mistakes, there is always room in the future to make a change or determine one’s worth through new opportunities, before death creates regrets. Another example of purposes changing one’s holiness or evilness is “Young Goodman Brown” Although he was living a life full of faith and positivity, Goodman Brown relinquished his goodness to a simple dream of negativity and fear. By the time he woke up, Brown began to live a life full of despair and stubbornness. This goes to show how a change of perspective or purpose can change a person’s demeanor of good and evil. Humans may assume that one might live a completely good or evil life. But there is definitely a

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