East of Eden, Book Club Discussion, May 2004

[theworm[$]]

How does the idea of timshel apply to Cathy?
If she IS evil, and didn't make a choice to act in an evil way, than does the concept of timshel apply to her? Steinbeck said that she was a monster born of human parents. The implication being that she is not human. If so, timshel may not apply to her at all.

[emeleel]

So we're all supposed to be looking for Eden in money. Money is the root of all evil. We're all good and evil, right? Steinbeck thinks so and that turned me off.

Actually, it's the *love* of money that's the root of all evil, not money itself. And despite Adam's riches, I don't think he ever loved money.

Spoiler alert for those who haven't gotten more than halfway through the book!











Remember his lettuce experiment? That wasn't for the sake of trying to make money just to get richer, it was just to see if he could do it or not. He wasn't particularly upset when he lost all that money.








END SPOILER

I didn't mind the Biblical references, because I don't think Steinbeck was trying to interpret the Bible in some new way. I think he was using characters and themes of the Bible to create a new story (not very original, though, I suppose) but not to make his own spin on the Bible.

[Redlass]

mtomm said

Liza, she had blind faith.

It never even ocurred to me that Cathy may have been "Eve" in this book. What did she do Eve-like other than giving birth to the twins. She didn't even "know" Adam! Cathy was just bad, bad, bad and yes she chose to be evil. Eve was not evil.

The similitudes are weak and maybe that is the way Steinbeck wanted them.

Cal makes an offering rejected by his father. I guess school was Aron's offering but it was not fully given, like Abel's, he didn't even finish one semester!

Liza! Yes, that was it. Thank you.

For many centuries, the prevailing belief was that Eve WAS evil. I have no idea where Steinbeck falls or whether he was trying to draw that parallel or not.

I would say the primary Eve-like thing that Cathy did was to destory Paradise for Adam.

[lynnzop[$]]

Re: Cathy and timshel.

Did Cathy have the ability to choose between good and evil choices? No, I do not believe she did. While it didn't appear to be genetics, there was definitely some force working within her (I hesistate to say mental illness, and I'm drawing a blank at the disorder I'm thinking of...where you don't have the ability to comprehend other people as "real"). Does that disprove timshel? Or is timshel selective in that some people DON'T have the ability to chose?

Lynn

[theworm[$]]

Steinbeck went to lengths to portray Cathy as non-human, so I don't think that that implies that timshel is selective.

[Redlass]

I'm struggling with the whole timshel/Cathy concept too. Because it seems to contradict itself there. Unless she is supposed to be the picture of what Cal could have become had he chosen to respond to his father's rejection. But that seems flawed because Cathy didn't have any such event.

Lynne: What is that term? Drat. Not anti-social. Not asocial. I know what you mean, but I'm not coming up with it. Not a psycopath but a... _____.

[erik_kosberg]

Didn’t Cathy at some point mention to Adam that they had had sex only once?

Don’t some forms of Jewish mysticism and Chinese cosmology ascribe to the numerological significance of words? What might the Chinese scholars and the rabbi have come up with when studying timshel in that context?

[mtomm[$]]

If mental illness was the cause of her evilness then timshel will not come into play because she would not have been responsible for her actions.


Okay, so Eve used to be portrayed as evil. Cathy is way beyond the transgression that Eve was involved in. I believe Eve knew that there were dire consequences to her actions but knew she needed to partake in order to progress. Eve's act was not selfish. Cathy's entire motivation was selfish. And even after Adam and Eve were banned from the garden they still remained "one flesh."

I fall on the lines of Cathy was not meant to be Eve. Maybe Satan.

[erik_kosberg]

What is that term? Drat. Not anti-social. Not asocial. I know what you mean, but I'm not coming up with it. Not a psycopath but a... _____.

Sociopath?

[lynnzop[$]]

erik_kosberg said

Sociopath?

Bingo. Thanks, that would have been bugging me all day.

Back to the EOE discussion.

[mtomm[$]]

Eric, I too remember that from the book. I thought maybe the boys had two different fathers, Charles and Adam.

[Redlass]

mtomm said

Cathy is way beyond the transgression that Eve was involved in. I believe Eve knew that there were dire consequences to her actions but knew she needed to partake in order to progress. Eve's act was not selfish. Cathy's entire motivation was selfish. And even after Adam and Eve were banned from the garden they still remained "one flesh."

I fall on the lines of Cathy was not meant to be Eve. Maybe Satan.

Wow, really?

See, I would say that Eve's act was far beyond Cathy's, not vice versa. Certainly the ramifications went way beyond anything that Cathy did. I mean, if we accept the Biblical story, Eve's choice threw every single one of us out of paradise--it caused the downfall of all of mankind. It was supposedly because of Eve that women have pain in childbirth and men have to suffer from their labor and that the ground will not give forth fruit easily.

Here, I went to look it up (using the KJV since I think that is the version Steinbeck started using):

Genesis 3:16
Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire [shall be] to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.

Genesis 3:17
And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed [is] the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat [of] it all the days of thy life;

Genesis 3:18
Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;

Genesis 3:19
In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou [art], and unto dust shalt thou return.

Here's the other reason for quoting that: I think Steinbeck used several of those elements in structuring the story the way he did. Perhaps it is even why he had so much description about the land itself.

Now, yes, Cathy as the serpent also introduces some interesting possibilities and I wouldn't quickly rule that out either.

[Redlass]

And yes, sociopath! Thank you.

[mtomm[$]]

Of course, Eve's transgression has greater ramifications! I would never mean to imply otherwise. But Eve's transgression was not born out of evilness. Eve was not inheritantly evil or a sociopath. I can't take my beliefs out of this discussion so please forgive if I offend but I believe that Eve KNEW the consequences of her actions. She knew she had the choice of staying forever in the Garden or eating the fruit (and I literally mean fruit), being cast out but then also the ability to multiply and replenish as they had been commanded. Only after their eyes were opened and they were cast out did Adam name her Eve, the mother of all living.

Cathy did not want to multiply and replenish. Cathy used the ability to procreate to defile and destroy (wo)man, not as Eve used her knowledge of procreation. And I'll stop there.

[theworm[$]]

Keep the discussion going, but I'd like to throw another general discussion question out there.

Which character did you find most believable or which could you most relate to?

I think that I suprise myself with my own answer, because it's Cal. While we possibly read more about other characters, Cal seems to me to be the most well rounded character in the book. We see his struggles and I could understand his conflicts.
At times I liked him - at times not, but he was "real".

[lynnzop[$]]

I don't think I related to any of them in a personal way. I enjoyed reading about them, but I couldn't see myself "in" any of their shoes.

[Redlass]

Oops, sorry, Margo, I misunderstood you. Thank you for expanding.

I liked Cal too for many of those reasons. He wasn't all one way or another. He considered himself all bad because he struggled, but most of the time he did what was good and kind.

Samuel was an ideal of what I would like to be like. With a couple of exceptions, I also found Lee to be very believable. The switch between pidgin and eloquence jarred me a little and stretched my suspension of disbelief, but didn't snap it.

[theworm[$]]

lynnzop said

I don't think I related to any of them in a personal way. I enjoyed reading about them, but I couldn't see myself "in" any of their shoes.

: off topic :
And here I had you pegged for Liza!

Resume discussion!

[Redlass]

Oh, another question: What killed Dessie?

That whole scene confused me. Why did Tom feel such guilt over it?

[theworm[$]]

I don't know exactly what killed her. I was starting to think that she was either pregnant or had cancer (you'd think I could have narrowed it down between those two).
Anyway - Tom gave her some sort of "salts" and they made her worse. I think his guilt was that he "mis-treated" her symptoms and that if he had gone for help sooner, perhaps she would not have died.

[mtomm[$]]

I thought she died of some intestinal problem that the salts complicated even more.

Did Adam claim his $50,000? Did I miss that somewhere?