Calvino’s quality of visibility is expressed in two ways. The one that starts with the word and arrives at the visual image (reading) and the one the starts with the visual image and arrives at a verbal expression (writing) The style of East of Eden is a marriage of vivid imagery of the Salinas Valley where Steinbeck writes words to express mental images and the human condition of good and evil that is already present in reader’s minds.
This is the idea that Steinbeck used imagination to convey the sights, sounds, colors, and smells of the Salinas Valley to the reader because the Valley is not something that people will inherently know. On the other hand, by telling the stories of two families living in the valley Steinbeck relays the story of Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel from Genesis, a story that resonates with all people.
