Biblical aspects of East of Eden

Biblical aspects of East of Eden

John Steinbeck’s “East of Eden” displays many modern era parallels to the bible. In “East of Eden” Steinbeck figuratively re-enacts allegories from the bible, particularly Genesis chapter four, and uses other biblical parallelism to develop his characters and convey his theme of good vs. evil.
The title itself comes from biblical text. In the bible it is used to describe how Cain left Eden in shame to be away from god, whom had punished him. This alludes to the many Cain and Abel parallels in the novel and also shows how Salinas valley, the place where most of the story takes place, as a symbol for the garden of Eden and an archetypal paradise.  
The first Cain and Abel re-enactment was the story of Adam and Charles. Like the original Cain and Abel whom gave gifts to god, Adam and Charles exchanges gifts with their father. God showed favoritism to Abel’s gift despite Cain working harder on his gift and that drove Cain to murder Abel. Likewise Charles worked harder on his gift to his father Cyrus, only to be overshadowed by his brother Adam. Charles grew angry at this and beat Adam, nearly to death. This is the first true good and evil contrast in the book. Adam is the character representative of good and Charles is the evil representative. The idea of choice between good and evil was not introduced yet and therefore the reader gets the idea that Charles is evil because he was born that way. Even the gifts themselves were sublimely representative of the alignment of the giver. Adam gave a puppy, a symbol of innocence, and Charles gave a knife, a representative of fighting. Another similarity between Cain and Charles is the outward appearance. After Cain’s crime god but a mark on Cain’s forehead so that anyone who saw him would know what he had done. Similarly a mark was on Charles’ forehead from an accident.
The other major Cain and Abel re-enactment is the storyline focused around Cal and Aron. Cal and Aron also gave gifts to their father,...