Alienation in East of Eden: The Chart of the Soul

Probably the biggest question we ask in English classes is "How does the style of the text support its meaning?"  This essay tackles that question.

While reading Alienation in East of Eden: The Chart of the Soul, consider:

1) Steinbeck is well known from writing novels in which some chapters are connected to the rest of the book more by theme than plot.  In your opinion, are there any chapters which stand out as being different from the rest of the book?  How so?  Why do you think Steinbeck might have included these chapters?

2) What is Steinbeck's comment on alienation?  free choice?  How does he make these comments?
3) According to this article, why does Steinbeck use the pattern of A and C names?
4) Consider some of the character names or book titles that Steinbeck ultimately opted not to use.  How do they add to your understanding of the book?
5) What is the impact of presenting his thesis in the way that Steinbeck does?  What is the impact of presenting it at the point in the book when he does?

“Alienation in East of Eden: The Chart of the Soul”

In the following essay, McDaniel examines alienation as a psychological force in East of Eden.

“I think there is only one book to a man,” said John Steinbeck as he wrote East of Eden. “This is the book I have always wanted and have worked and prayed to be able to write” (JN, p. 5). Though Steinbeck wrote East of Eden, his “big book” (JN, p. 33), with a strong sense of purpose, critics have found it formless; and though he recorded his ideas about it daily, critics have been vague about his theme. Steinbeck expected these problems, but the expectation was not the confession of guilt it has been taken for. “My carefully worked out method will be jumped on by the not too careful critic as slipshod” (JN, p. 31), he predicted. Critics have taken as support Steinbeck’s occasional concern about whether he would be understood, discounting his dominating enthusiasm about the basic soundness of his plan. East of Eden should seem “ordinary” and “casual,” he wrote, but “it is the most uncasual story in the world” (JN, p. 40). “As you will have discovered . . . the technique of this book is an apparent lack of technique and I assure you that it is not easy” (JN, p. 60).

About midway through East of Eden Steinbeck wrote, “My patterned book is clear to me now— right to the end. And I am pleased that I am able to follow the form I laid down so long ago. I hope the book will sound a little formless at first until it settles in the mind” (JN, p. 112). As he drew toward the end he said, “What seems kind of accidental is not. I don’t think there is a single sentence in this whole book that does not either develop character, carry on the story or provide necessary background” (JN, p. 153). Again anticipating critical response to his work Steinbeck mused, “Years after I have finished a book, someone discovers my design and ascribes it either to a theft or an accident” (JN, p. 134). The purpose of the following essay is to do half of this, that is, to compare the novel and the East of Eden journal to clarify understanding of the theme; but it should exonerate Steinbeck from a felony regarding form. It will charge him, instead, with misdemeanors in tone.
Steinbeck thought a chapter should “have design of tone, as well as of form. A chapter should be a perfect cell in the whole book and should almost be able to stand alone” (JN, p. 25). But a chapter standing too strongly alone in East of Eden has often controlled interpretations of the book. These are the persuasive words in Chapter 34: Humans are caught—in their lives, in their thoughts, in their hungers and ambitions, in their avarice and cruelty, and in their kindness and generosity too—in a net of good and evil. I think this is the only story we have and that it occurs on all levels of feeling and intelligence.

Out of context Chapter 34 seems a forthright statement of a theme of good and evil. Within the context of the book, however, this short essay relates to a point in the narrative much as the intercalary chapters did in TheGrapes of Wrath. In Chapter 34 Steinbeck is generalizing about death, good, and evil just after he has particularized feelings about these things as they affect one man, Tom Hamilton, in Chapter 33. These words do not state the major theme; they give only a hint of it in caught and net. It is possible to suggest, then, that East of Eden is even more complex than The Grapes of Wrath because along with tracing three generations of a fictional family, the Trasks, Steinbeck intersperses chapters about the Hamiltons, his own maternal relatives; sometimes intertwines the Hamiltons and the Trasks; and still writes essay chapters. But the materials are carefully related, and not at all “sloppy” and “confused” as Peter Lisca claims.

Another connection to the main theme appears in Chapter 34: “In uncertainty I am certain that underneath their topmost layers of frailty men want to be good and want to be loved. Indeed, most of their vices are attempted short cuts to love.” But the theme is stated specifically in the middle of the book, Chapter 22; Steinbeck corroborates this fact (JN, p. 104). Lee, the wise Chinese servant of Adam Trask makes the thematic statement for the author:

I think this is the best-known story in the world because it is everybody’s story. I think it is the symbol story of the human soul. . . . The greatest terror a child can have is that he is not loved, and rejection is the hell he fears. I think everyone in the world to a large or small extent has felt rejection. And with rejection comes anger, and with anger some kind of crime in revenge for the rejection, and with the crime guilt— and there is the story of mankind. I think that if rejection could be amputated, the human would not be what he is. . . . It is all there—the start, the beginning. One child, refused the love he craves, kicks the cat and hides his secret guilt; and another steals so that money will make him loved; and third conquers the world—and always the guilt and revenge and more guilt. . . . Therefore I think this old and terrible story is important because it is a chart of the soul—the secret, rejected, guilty soul.

Steinbeck’s publicized account of his writing of the novel, Journal of a Novel, consists of unmailed letters Steinbeck wrote his Viking editor, Pascal Covici about East of Eden. Writing daily letters to warm up for his work, he thus left a unique and valuable record of the composition of the novel, as well as of his creative processes per se. But it takes thorough knowledge of the novel as well as knowledge about Steinbeck to plumb all the letters because Steinbeck did not have to explain to Covici what other readers may not know.

There are also problems in correlating the books because the manuscript of East of Eden was cut and changed. Nevertheless, comparing the Journal and the published text can refine our understanding of the theme, for week by week Steinbeck commented on his theme and structure.

The most telling note appears June 11, 1951, when Steinbeck was writing the section containing the words of Lee quoted above: “if you wonder why I am spending so much time on this naming—you must know that I am stating my thesis and laying it out” (JN, p. 104). “This naming” refers to Adam Trask, Samuel Hamilton, and Lee naming Adam’s twin sons. Calling the boys Caleb and Aaron (which he shortens to Cal and Aron),

Steinbeck makes their initials match Cain’s and Abel’s. Steinbeck wants “the whole book illuminated by the discussion,” which is not “just a discussion of Biblical lore,” but uses “the Biblical story as a measure of ourselves” (JN, pp. 104–05). Rather than expressing the “theme of the individual’s struggle between good and evil, for even “the importance of the individual human soul,” the central chapters explain the causes of evil from a psychological point of view: evil comes from feelings of rejection. Believing that people follow patterns in their lives (JN, p. 151), Steinbeck wanted to show that to break out of destructive patterns begun by rejection, people must feel accepted by others. Simplified, the theme of East of Eden is alienation— the alienation that writes the history of evil in the world. Alienation in this respect means feelings of unwanted separation. Once this theme is understood, supposed flaws in Steinbeck’s structure disappear; the author’s confidence in his design makes sense; and some recent views defending the book get new support. Because the violent Cains are easiest to understand in East of Eden, people often see the Abel characters as simply “good.” Steinbeck shows their complexity in Adam. Abels are “good,” in that by personality, they are not inclined to be aggressive, but they can still experience alienation. (In real life, Abels as well as Cains suffer from guilt, but East of Eden is complex enough without trying to prove this.) Abels handle rejection subtly—by isolation and withdrawal, for example; by compulsive behavior; or by submitting to manipulation.

They may even commit suicide out of despair or guilt. When Robert DeMott notes that the relationship of major characters in East of Eden indicates their “psychological personalities,” he makes an important observation in this regard. Commenting on the behavior of Adam Trask, DeMott says the young Adam “foreshadows the separateness and isolation which characterizes Adam throughout the book.” DeMott’s “revisionary thesis” (his term) urges greater attention to three interests of Steinbeck—psychology, myth, and the processes of the creative imagination. In a manner of speaking, all three shaped the theme and structure of East of Eden, as will be seen in Steinbeck’s effort to explain the consequences of rejection with Cain and Abel as his frame.

It is interesting to note that Steinbeck considered giving his principal characters the family name of Canable (Cain-Abel). He limited the symbolism to first initials, instead, yet because he wanted a broad span of time and place to suggest the role of rejection in human history, he portrayed three generations of Trasks with such names. Cyrus Trask, the first, is married to Alice, the first Abel. In the next generation Cyrus has sons named Charles and Adam. Adam marries Cathy and has the sons Cal and Aron. The third generation characters are the most fully developed, so that they can show that the sins of the fathers are visited upon their sons, as the Bible has said. To examine the destructive cycle seems to have been Steinbeck’s plan from the start. The chief new discovery made while writing the novel was the way to give humanity hope of changing the pattern.

Lee expresses the challenge. “‘Couldn’t a world be built around accepted truth? Couldn’t some pains and insanities be rooted out if the causes were known?’” Almost overwhelmed with excitement, Samuel replies to Lee, “ ‘I don’t know, damn you. You’ve taken a contentious game and made an answer of it. Let me alone—let me think!’ ” Not the kind of artist he called “hard boiled,” Steinbeck believed there is one purpose in writing . . . beyond simply doing it interestingly. It is the duty of the writer to lift up, to extend, to encourage” (JN, p. 115). In the process of intently re-examining Genesis he suddenly discovered what he needed. “I have finally I think found a key to the story” (JN, p. 104). His key was the Hebrew word timshel. The letters to Covici show Steinbeck then sought justification for introducing a new translation of timshel (Chapter Four, Verse Seven). In the King James version of the Bible God says to Cain, “thou shalt rule over” sin, making a promise. The American Standard Version reads “Do thou”—an order. But through Lee, Steinbeck presents a translation that sets man free—“thou mayest.” This translation gives man a choice. At the same time that he saw this possibility in his materials, Steinbeck discovered a new and final title: “I think I have a title at last, a beautiful title, East of Eden. And read the sixteenth verse to find it. And the Salinas Valley is surely East of Eden. . . . What a strange story it is and how its haunts one. . . . I began to realize that without this story—or rather a sense of it—psychiatrists would have nothing to do. In other words this one story is the basis of all human neurosis. . . .” (JN, p. 104). Having abandoned the regional title Salinas Valley, the personal My Valley, and the narrow Cain Sign, Steinbeck found the title grew with him; but he worried that it might seem “a soft title” though “it is anything but soft. . . . I think the quotation ‘And Cain etc.’ should be at the bottom of the title page. . . . There should never be any doubt in the reader’s mind what the title refers to” (JN, p. 107). And believing it an author’s obligation to contribute “to our developing species and our half developed culture,” he wanted to show, to “say so sharply and so memorably that it will not be forgotten,” that “although East of Eden is not Eden, it is not insuperably far away” (JN, pp. 115–16).

With Chapter 1 almost complete Steinbeck had said, “the theme is beginning to emerge . . . It will emerge again and again . . . The gifts of Cain and Abel to their father and his rejection of one and acceptance of the other will I think mean a great deal to you but I wonder if it will be generally understood by other readers” (JN, p. 25). The painstaking deliberations about timshel show the same great concern with language and medieval texts he later demonstrated in The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights. “One of the most important mistranslations in the Old Testament” surrounds timshel, he said. “This little story turns out to be one of the most profound in the world.” Besides the possibility of free will in the story there is the “other thing,” a question of the significance of “firstling” and “fat.” “If firstling and fat are qualitative, then fruit of the earth without a qualitative might be some key to the rejection” (JN, p. 108; (my italics). Certainly Steinbeck was concerned about how all the parts of the story fit— especially the cause and the effect of Cain’s rejection. Though Steinbeck wondered whether he was getting his point across, he went on being intentionally subtle.
As he finished the chapter establishing his thesis, a very difficult section to write, he said with relief, “I could have put it in a kind of an essay but I think it was better to let it come out of these three” [Adam, Lee, and Samuel] (JN, p. 105). Following subsequent letters laboring over questions about Cain’s rejection and the meaning of God’s words, Steinbeck concluded: “Now tomorrow I will have a final statement of my theme and it will never again be mentioned in the book” (JN, p. 113).
Steinbeck was preparing for Samuel Hamilton’s death as he said this, and for Samuel’s final meeting with Adam “packed with information both about the men and about the story” (JN, p. 114). Several times he said that after Samuel’s death “the whole tempo and tone of the story is going to change. It will speed up and leap toward the future” (JN, p. 114). Having shown Adam’s life after Samuel’s death, Steinbeck confirmed “it is all down now. Its thesis is stated—all of it. Now we will see the thesis at work” (JN, p. 123).

In the section Steinbeck was talking about Samuel leads Adam out of the long depression that followed Adam’s rejection by Cathy. Samuel gives Adam some final advice and a push toward living without him. Thus a father figure, Samuel frees his “son” from rejection. For the first time in his life, Adam can live independent of the control of another.

But being free is a passage to knowledge—it is not knowledge itself. In the second half of the book Adam must repeat the errors of his own rejecting father, Cyrus, before he learns to set Cal free. Lee introduces the freedom of choice; Samuel exercises this freedom by taking the risk that frees Adam; Adam will free Cal. Steinbeck wanted to show that fathers visit sins upon their sons by denying them free choice. Freedom is a gift of love. Adam’s deathbed bequest to Cal is clear when he says “Timshel!”

Steinbeck laid out his vision of the cycle of rejection and alienation vs. reconciliation when he presented his thesis in Chapter 22, then illustrated it in 24. On June 21, 1951, anticipating the illustration he wrote, “I will take up the little flute melody, the continuing thing that bridges lives and ties the whole thing together, and I will end with a huge chord if I can do it” (JN, p. 116). Achieving his goal the next day he exulted, “I have never been more excited in my life about a chapter than I have been in this one which is just now concluding [the present Chapters 23 and 24]. . . . I know it needs lots of work but the form and the content of it seem right to me and right for the design of the book” (JN, p. 117). He had made Samuel confront Adam with the truth of Cathy’s perversion; and Adam had proved his strength. The focus of the book then shifted to Cal.

Two weeks later Steinbeck’s intentions remain firm; he says he has no sense of wandering from his purpose and he is about to reverse the “C-A theme” of the first section taking “the burden” from the Abel (Adam) and putting it on the Cain figure, Caleb, “my Cain principle.” “Charles was a dark principle who remained dark. . . . Part 3 is Caleb’s part—since he dominates and survives it. Thus we get no repetition but an extension of Part I” (JN, p. 128). In other words, in Part I, Charles, a Cain, did not struggle against evil, but Cal will; and because Lee intercedes for Cal, Adam will set Cal free to conquer “evil.” In a letter to Covici, Steinbeck calls Cal Trask his “baby”: “He is the Everyman, the battle ground between good and evil, the most human of all, the sorry man. In that battle the survivor is both” (SLL, p. 429). Cal is Steinbeck’s “baby” because of his struggle; Cal shows that the rejected, angry man can gain control over the forces that are directing him. In existential terms, alienation is a loss of freedom. In psychological terms, alienation is a force that can cause isolation, destruction, submission, or unnatural control. East of Eden can be read as a novel illustrating either that philosophical or that psychological view of humanity. Lee’s thematic statement closely resembles the classic statement on alienation of philosopher/psychoanalyst Erich Fromm in Escape from Freedom (1941). Loneliness, explained Fromm, is a powerful force in man derived from the need of others for the sake of survival. People feel insignificant when alone because they need love. But they need to relate to the world without losing their individuality. Not possessive love, nor materialism, but love which affirms others as well as the self, is the sign of a healthy person. Someone who feels insecure, doubtful, or powerless not only perpetuates isolation, but may perform destructive acts or seek or submit to unhealthy controls. Fromm concludes:

If human freedom is established as freedom to, if man can realize his self fully and uncompromisingly, the fundamental cause for his asocial drives will have disappeared and only a sick and abnormal individual will be dangerous. This freedom has never been realized in the history of mankind, yet it has been an ideal to which mankind has stuck even if it was often expressed in abstruse and irrational forms. There is no reason to wonder why the record of history shows so much cruelty and destructiveness. If there is anything to be surprised at—and encouraged by— I believe it is the fact that the human race, in spite of all that has happened to men, has retained—and actually developed—such qualities of dignity, courage, decency, and kindness as we find them throughout history and in countless individuals today.

East of Eden is not only less formless, it is less sentimental than it has been taken to be. Just as it is not loosely “about good and evil,” it is not vaguely “about morality.” It is about morality only in the sense that it looks at human behavior from established perspectives. Steinbeck saw the Cain and Abel story as embodying the basis of all neuroses: “if you take the fall along with it, you have the total of the psychic troubles that can happen to a human” (JN, p. 104). Here he brings up, separately, the Garden of Eden, the classic symbol for themes of good and evil; he had used the Cain story because his theme was different. Steinbeck might have pleased “the neurosis belt” (JN, p. 115) if he had offered mankind no hope, but if timshel weakens his art, it strengthens his value to more readers, which was more important to him. His worst offense was belaboring the words that “lift up . . . extend” (JN, p. 154). Perhaps overstating his beliefs resulted from too much planning and from overwhelming intentions—hence the misdemeanors in tone. His basic structure is sound.

Works Cited

McDaniel, Barbara. “Alienation in East of Eden: The ‘Chart of the Soul,’” in Steinbeck Quarterly, Vol. 14, No. 1–2, Winter/Spring 1981, pp. 32–39.