Emily Williams's List: East of Eden critical review

• Cyrus Trask favors Adam's birthday gift of a puppy over Charles' gift of an expensive knife, and Charles almost beats his brother Adam to death in a jealous rage.
• Adam (Abel) becomes the wanderer, first in the army, then as a vagabond, and then in South America.
• One day he has a farm accident which results in a large facial scar, a mark akin to Cain's.
• Adam favors Aron over Cal, much as Cyrus preferred Adam over Charles and God preferred Abel over Cain.
• The "Genesis" tale thus plays out in the Trask family, with Cal, albeit inadvertently, killing his brother.

3 more annotations...

• different members of the Trask family correspond to the biblical Cain and Abel at different times
• Like the biblical Cain, Charles grows jealous of his brother, Adam, and attacks him in rage—Charles does not, however, cause his brother's death.
• Adam relinquishes his role as an Abel figure and takes on the role of his biblical namesake, Adam, the first human
• Again, Cal, the Cain figure, becomes jealous of his brother, Aron.
• Cal sneers, “Am I supposed to look out for him?”—a parallel to Cain's famous retort to God after murdering Abel, “Am I my brother's keeper?”
• Trask family fortune is an emblem of the idea of original sin
• Cyrus leaves his fortune, likely earned through corruption, to Charles and Adam
• Charles dies, he passes on his share to Adam and Cathy
• Cathy increases it through her work at the brothel and then passes it on solely to Aron
• squanders his share on a failed business venture
• Adam essentially sidesteps its moral tain
• Aron, however, is forced to bear the full burden of it himself
• Cal, meanwhile, is left out of the Trask inheritance and escapes untainted

11 more annotations...