East of Eden is possibly the greatest work of literature I’ve ever read. That may sound hyperbolic, especially coming from an English major, but as I worked through the book with a reading group at our church, that same sentiment was unanimous. “Incredible.” “Breath-taking.” “Amazing.” These were our descriptors. Set in the Salinas Valley of California in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, East of Eden has been described by critics as having “the primordial power and simplicity of myth.” It’s a story about two families—the Trasks and the Hamiltons. In characters that range from the pensive and passionate to the perverse and pretentious, Steinbeck’s creatures unfold their identity, search for prospects of love, and combat the harrowing evil both inside themselves and in the world around them leading up to WWI. All of this is overlaid on the biblical account of Cain and Abel, which adds some narrative complexity.
If that sounds like heavy reading, it was! And yet our group was enraptured by it. We gladly took hours from our weeks to pore over its pages. What was it about this book that set our minds and hearts on fire?
Well, there wasn’t only one thing. The characters were three-dimensional, for instance, with all their well-drilling and accent-faking quirks. And Steinbeck’s writing grips you with its play on senses and its ability to help readers feel the deeper truths of experience—“time works like a damp brush on water color.” But while the characters and the writing were remarkable, for me there was something even more mesmerizing: I believed the world he gave me.
Why? Why was Steinbeck’s world so believable? Why did I forget halfway through the book that Cathy, Adam, Charlie, Samuel, Lee, Cal, Aaron, and Abra were not made of muscle and bone but of ink and pulp? Why did the characters he wrote begin writing themselves into me—becoming, in some sense, part of my own experience?
Literature teaches us to receive rather than construct reality.
I’ve landed on two reasons: the characters’ vision of experience and their inner wars. Both of these points serve to reinforce a truth that always needs repeating in theological circles: literature teaches us to receive rather than construct reality.
Vision of Experience
At root, there are only two ways to see the world: as it is or as you want it to be. Everything else is adornment—ivy climbing around that central vision. The reason there’s conflict in the world is simple in this sense: those who see the world as they want it to be have forgotten they’re playing pretend. They expect the world and its wanderers to bend to them, to cater to their expectations, to fit their patterns and adjust to their proclivities. But we know how that goes. Wanting the world to be a certain way doesn’t change how things are. It only leads to dissatisfaction, discouragement, and—in the most severe cases—downfall.
A friend in the reading group made the insightful observation that you could almost divide the characters in East of Eden into those who saw reality as it was and those who saw it as they wanted it to be.
The characters who saw reality as it was were the ones who suffered the most but also grasped the deeper beauty behind God’s overpowering providence. Samuel, Lee, Cal, and Abra saw both the complexity of the world and their own inner wars as they walked through it. Samuel, for instance, struggled to understand the Bible, especially the story that serves as a foil for the entire novel: Cain and Abel (Gen. 4). His wife Liza didn’t struggle at all. Steinbeck describes her as having “a dour Presbyterian mind and a code of morals that pinned down and beat the brains out of nearly everything that was pleasant to do” (p. 9). She thought Samuel was foolish for trying to explain or understand God’s word. “Why should we try to explain a verity”? (p. 266) While Samuel wanted to see into the deeper things and how they worked, Liza was content to stay obedient on the surface. But Lee, perhaps the most dynamic character, quickly recognized Samuel’s vision for things beneath the surface. Samuel was the first to pick up on Lee’s feigned Chinese accent. He knew Lee was far more culturally assimilated than he let on. Lee used the Chinese accent because he knew that’s what most people expected of him. When Samuel pries underneath the surface, Lee says, “You see what is, where most people see what they expect” (p. 163). Cal, tragically, also saw the world for what it was, including his own attempt to purchase his father’s love. He could see that Adam loved Aron as an angel, but he wouldn’t let that deter him from trying to earn his father’s affection. Cal’s efforts made me wince many times. He reminded me that seeing the world as it really is can be very painful.
If seeing the world as it is brings pain, then seeing the world as it isn’t brings paralysis.
In contrast to these characters who saw the complexity of the world and their own inner wars, another set of characters—Cathy (Kate), Adam, and Aron—saw reality as they wanted it to be. Cathy was a demon who could only see the ugly and evil in others. She had no understanding or space for goodness and grace. Adam blindly loved his demon bride despite her blatant malevolence. He refused to see her as she was. Aron, too, was crippled by his short-sighted vision of love, the nature of evil, and disappointment, which other characters tried to protect him from—to no avail. His character ends up paralyzed by circumstances, unable to deal with the harsh realities of unrequited love, deceit, and moral failure. If seeing the world as it is brings pain, then seeing the world as it isn’t brings paralysis.
Choosing
Steinbeck’s mastery and genius lie in the ways he presents these characters with their vision of experience: the seers and the blind. We know people, undoubtedly, who mirror each of the characters, including ourselves. But central to his depiction of them is the ideal of free choice. We choose how to see the world. This was meant to be the jewel at the center of the novel. The characters have a long discussion about the Hebrew word תִּמְשָׁל timshel (Gen. 4:7), which they translate as “thou mayest” (rather than the more likely translations of “thou should/shalt” or “thou must”). Instead of interpreting Genesis 4:7 within its biblical context (where God governs all that comes to pass and freely chooses whom he will bless), the characters (and perhaps Steinbeck himself) interpret it within their world of non-religious human freedom. What’s praised is the unrestrained freedom to choose and fight back against evil and corruption—a freedom deeply valued by characters such as Lee and Cal. We can choose how we see the world, and we can choose to fight back against the evil inside us. This is an inspiring call for many readers, no doubt. But it leaves out a biblical teaching that’s absolutely critical.
The human condition is indeed one of choosing. But more profound than that, and presupposing it at every level, is the truth that before all of our choosing comes God’s choosing. And that’s actually behind Steinbeck’s narrative for those with theological eyes to see it. Why does Cyrus love Adam more than his brother Charles? There’s no explanation. Why does Adam love Aron more than Cal? There’s no explanation. Why is this the case? Because, in representing the biblical story of Cain and Abel, Steinbeck knows there is no explanation other than the mysterious and voluntary electing love of a parent, which reflects the voluntary electing love of God. This is the God who chose to bless Abraham and Isaac and Jacob—and not their family members. People have always been uncomfortable with this, as I’m sure readers of East of Eden would be. It sounds “wrong,” because we have such egalitarian ears. We believe all must be equal according to our own standards and perception. But that’s not how things work. That’s not how love works. That’s not how God works. God is the one who mysteriously chooses, without explanatory merit in the ones he chooses. To accept this is to see the world as it is, not the world as we would like it to be.
We are troubled by this ultimately because it means we are not in full control of our lives. We live in tension, between what J.H. Bavinck called “activity and passivity” (The Church between Temple and Mosque, 65). We feel that we have some control of our lives and make our own unforced choices (activity), but we’re also aware that we don’t have full control and are being led in ways we would not choose (passivity). Contemporary readers are more comfortable with an “all-active” approach, because that means they can dismiss the transcendent, the role of God. The trouble is, that way of living is false. And we know it. Beneath all of our choosing is the God who has chosen, and yet that somehow does not invalidate the authenticity of our own choices. We are not “forced” in any sense. But we are ordained by the God who governs all. Coming to terms with this would fall within the spirit of characters such as Samuel, Lee, and Cal, who are pained by the truth of reality but would rather work through that than through a fiction.
Inner Wars
Part of what informs the characters’ vision of experience is the war between good and evil raging inside them. Think of this in terms of color.
We like to paint ourselves and others in monochrome. The colors, represented by the descriptions we use, aren’t so contrastive. We see ourselves and others as sensitive, kind, and thoughtful, or as callous, coarse, and rash. All beige, or all blue, or all red. Somewhere inside us, we’re not satisfied with this because we know people are not only more complex than we imagine; they’re also each embedded in a ceaseless spiritual war. As the quote goes (usually attributed to Plato or Philo of Alexandria), “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” If we’re all fighting a hard battle, then it makes sense to assume that someone described as “sensitive” is sometimes fighting insensitivity. Someone kind is warring with cruelty. Someone thoughtful is still running around doing thoughtless things. There is an inner war for each of us. And that means most attempts at reductionism are short-sighted or foolish.
The Apostle Paul describes this phenomenon for the Christian as a battle of the old versus the new self: “I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me” (Rom. 7:15–17). Paul is constantly struggling, as we are, to put off his old sinful self (Rom. 6:6; Eph. 4:22; Col. 3:9).
We would do well to remember that people are seldom as simple or consistent as they appear to be.
What does this have to do with characters in fiction? We identify most with characters that mirror us—our longings, frustrations, sins, and confessions. That means that believable characters are characters in conflict, struggling inside themselves to move in a certain direction. And we resonate with that. We may not want to describe ourselves as Cal, but we secretly admire the confession of his own inner war between causing conflict and keeping peace. When Abra tells Cal she loves him, he says, “I’m not good.” She responds, “Because you’re not good.” Cal sees the world and himself as they really are—conflicted, bent toward evil apart from unexplainable workings of grace. He knows he has a war inside himself, and his willingness to admit it is part of why Abra loves him (and why she doesn’t love Aron). She has a similar war inside her own soul. We all do.
The inner wars of others are sacred grounds for sympathy—whether in fiction or reality. We would do well to remember that people are seldom as simple or consistent as they appear to be.
Apologetic Implications
The altar call of East of Eden is a libertine “thou mayest,” not a biblical “thou must” or “thou shalt.” Steinbeck presents human freedom as the cardinal virtue, even though Christians believe this is at odds with the biblical narrative. Despite this, I still believe it’s very important for Christians to keep reading and thinking through classic and popular literature. Why? As I said at the outset, literature teaches us to receive rather than construct reality. And it does this often for two reasons.
First, as Thomas Keene put it in his article, “He Gave Us Fiction,” sometimes fiction and stories are devices that impart “truth in a far more evocative and impactful way than merely propositional discourse would have.” The Prophet Nathan could have told an adulterous King David that he was wrong for stealing his subject’s wife. But instead, he told a story—about a rich man who stole a lamb from a pauper. The story hit home; David fell into repentance. Would the same have happened if Nathan had led with a propositional judgment? I doubt it. Stories do things to us that direct discourse doesn’t.
This is ultimately the case because we are what Keene calls storied creatures—a point I develop more fully in Insider-Outsider, where I use the phrase narratival creatures. We are built to understand the world through stories, through narratives. Scripture itself is one, big, overarching true narrative that we navigate, even as we find ourselves in its pages. There are propositional truths woven throughout the Bible, of course. There are doctrines to discover across its books. But all is embedded in the story of God’s creation and redemption of mankind. And we’re awaiting the consummation—the chapter that begins but doesn’t end. East of Eden—and all fiction—actually reinforces the fundamental structure of reality as storied. What the characters do, how the plot develops, what the landscape contributes—these all help us see the same facets in real life. God often uses stories to shape and direct us within the larger story he is telling about himself. Again, through stories we receive rather than construct reality.
Second, stories feed one of the critical components of our understanding: imagination. Keene notes, “We sometimes talk about the imagination as if its primary function was found in creating ‘untruths.’ Someone with a good imagination is usually someone we regard as adept at concocting stories out of thin air. But that’s not the primary role of the imagination. The imagination is a key component to knowing.” We use our imagination to represent all experiences we haven’t subjectively participated in. I’ve never tended a flock of sheep. I’ve never taken turns sleeping during the night so that an eye was always kept on the wandering herd. I haven’t called them in a given direction or nudged them into formation with my shepherd’s crook. But I understand what all this means because I have an imagination. I can represent those experiences to myself. What’s more, I also use these representations to understand what Jesus says when he tells his disciples, “I am the good shepherd” (John 10:11). And then I have the added imaginative task of thinking of myself as a sheep.
This happens all the time in Scripture. At one moment, we’re called to imagine ourselves as sheep, at another as seeds (John 12:24–25), and at another as fish (Matt. 4:19) or vines (John 15:4). Put simply, our imagination is not a vehicle to carry us away from the world; it’s a central, God-given tool we use to live inside it. Those who struggle to use their imaginations have very limited access to the richness of Scripture.
In the end, I believe that’s why I read and thoroughly enjoyed East of Eden—for its imagination-gripping richness. I could choose to discard it, if I wished, to cast fiction to the wayside. But in a profound sense, doing so would be seeing the world as I want to see it, and not as it really is.
Life is storied. So is theology. God is a tale-teller and a truth-teller. That’s what he has chosen. And I plan to keep seeing his world as it is.