East of Eden Good vs. Evil Quotes

First of all, Steinbeck, it's not cool to call people born without arms monsters. We guess though, that his bigger point here is that some people are missing the kindness gene—Cathy, from this perspective, is inexplicably evil. It's not like she had an unhappy childhood, or was bullied on the playground, or that her parents didn't give her enough hugs. Cathy's evil is a very abstract evil, and she embodies the idea of evil, as opposed to just doing some evil deeds every now and again. This implies that evil itself can exist in the world without necessarily having a reason for existing in the first place.

Hey, says Steinbeck, don't judge. He thinks that we all have the capacity for evil and evil instincts within us, and the only difference between good and bad people is that the bad people let 'em loose. So Cathy might be missing that fence that keeps human evil at bay, but it doesn't necessarily mean that other people are devoid of the same evil.

Hm, what other thing flicks its tongue? Oh that's right, it's a snake. And by snake, we mean Satan. With a character named Adam and all this talk of Eden floating around, this snake-imagery makes total sense. (Remember that bit from Genesis about a cunning serpent getting Eve to introduce evil into the world? Yeah—this is that.) This is Steinbeck telling us that Cathy isn't just run-of-the-mill evil: she is Original Recipe Evil. Samuel's instincts are spot-on.

Whoa—hey there, paradigm shift. This is like one of those revelation moments you have while on your shrink's sofa, where all of a sudden you understand that your relationship with the rest of the world comes from within you, instead of from without. That's what Adam is trying to tell Kate here: she can't understand that people can have both good and evil in them at the same time—because she doesn't have any good in her.

Kate hates hypocrites, and in her view everyone just pretends to be good, church-going, upstanding citizens, while secretly they come to her place to get whipped by hookers. But that means that whenever she sees a little bit of badness in anybody, she takes that to mean that they are all bad. And what person doesn't have at least a little bit of badness in them? No wonder she sees the world as all evil.

Steinbeck isn't saying that all stories are about good versus evil. Well, actually, he kind of is—he's saying that most of the conflicts in our stories can be boiled down to good versus evil at some symbolic level. But Steinbeck doesn't think that it's an equally-balanced fight, because evil can't survive on its own. Evil has to have something to keep it evil, whereas good seems to be its own reward.

The he in this case is a teenage Cal, who's got some raging hormones and a lot of uncertainty. It's a recipe for confusion. Part of the problem is that Cal is trying to figure out who he is, i.e. whether he is good or evil. While this is not a question that most people ask themselves, in Cal's case he feels like he is constantly fighting himself not to be evil. Like many of the other characters in the novel, he thinks that people are either/or. But as this passage shows, Cal is obviously both, as one would realistically expect.

Yikes. Who wants to be put to that kind of standard? Abra's really sharp to recognize that the all-good Virgin Mary Aron has made her into has nothing to do with the reality of Abra at all. Translation: Abra sees being both good and bad as part of her personality. If she were to try and be all good and pure, she wouldn't be Abra; part of what makes her who she is is her nuances. So Aron isn't actually in love with Abra at all. And as Lee points out, there is no one in the world who could live up to Aron's expectations. He has pretty much guaranteed for himself the surprise of a lifetime.

Remember how earlier when Cal is grappling with puberty he waffles between being good and being bad? Well here is Lee, giving him some straight-talk: You're both, he says, and that's okay, because so is everybody. Get over yourself. But it's no wonder that Cal holds this view of the world: after all, his family consists of bad-to-the-bone Kate on the one hand, and not-a-bad-bone-in-his-body Aron on the other.

Sometimes it's hard to look at the world and not be at least a little pessimistic about it. But this passage, which comes in the last pages of the novel, is clearly setting a tone for how we should interpret the book as a whole. And that interpretation is that evil does not always win, even if it may seem like it. Considering the end of the novel, with Adam paralyzed from a stroke and Aron dead, it's an unusual way for good to triumph. Yet even if Cal did give in to his jealousy and indirectly cause his brother's death, and even if Kate did get away with murder(s), there can still be redemption, hope, and maybe (dare we say it) a happy ending.