For the second half of this blog I will use the same five qualities explained in part I of this blog, but related them to a piece of literature of my choice. I have chosen one of my favorite works, East of Eden by John Steinbeck. I read East of Eden for the first time as a junior in high school. The intense imagery and complicated characters fascinated me, never before had I read such effective and moving description in the midst of a complicated plot with dozens of characters. The novel is often described as Steinbeck’s most ambitious work because of the interwoven stories of two families and the intricate description of the Salinas Valley in California. Steinbeck once said, “It has everything in it I have been able to learn about my craft or profession in all these years.” He further claimed: “I think everything else I have written has been, in a sense, practice for this.”
Steinbeck considered East of Eden to be his requiem and greatest work of all time. It is partly based off his own family history and what better use of a well calculated plan to create a work than the use of ones own life experiences that are molded and elaborated on. Steinbeck tells the story of two families- the Trask’s and the Hamilton’s, Samuel Hamilton being Steinbeck’s maternal grandfather – to convey the story of Genesis. Through careful and precise story telling, Steinbeck interweaves the complicated and tumultuous story of Cain and Abel.
