A Paradoxical World in East of Eden: The Theory of Free Will and the Heritage of Puritanism

Yuji Kami

In The Log from the Sea of Cortez (1951), a non-fiction treatise written in collaboration with Edward F. Ricketts, John Steinbeck acknowledges “a strange duality in the human which makes for an ethical paradox” (96) and maintains that “in our structure of society, the so-called and considered good qualities are invariable concomitants of failure, while the bad ones are the cornerstones of success” (80). Given this belief it is no wonder that, in almost all his works, Steinbeck basically describes the good individual as weak and the evil one as strong in our society. For example, in East of Eden (1952) this belief is evident when a good character, Aron Trask, is shown to be so weak and blind that he cannot come to terms with reality. As a result of this personality trait, Aron dies in the novel while an “evil” character, his twin brother, Caleb Trask, is depicted as so strong that he is able to recognize and survive the cruel realities of life. And yet elsewhere Steinbeck still asserts that both good and evil are inseparably mixed and that humans are thus caught in a paradoxical net between both of them. One example of the author’s belief that such ethical contradictions exist is shown when Samuel Hamilton and the Chinese servant Lee in East of Eden discuss the paradox in the Bible in which Cain, who committed fratricide, survives and has children under the protection of God, while his brother Abel exists only in the story and does not survive despite his ‘goodness. During this discussion, Lee, Steinbeck’s persona, exultantly declares: “‘Thou mayest’! Why, that makes a man great, that gives him stature with the gods, for in his weakness and his filth and his murder of his brother he has still the great choice. He can choose his course and fight it through and win” (EoE 305). It should be noted here that the central theme of this novel is that man is free to choose either good or evil and that individuals are responsible for their own lives.1 Later in the novel, Lee also tells Cal [Caleb] that “Maybe you’ll come to know that every man in every generation is refired” (EoE 599), and that “All impurities burned out and ready for a 220 Yuji Kami glorious flux, and for that ʊmore fire” (EoE 599). What Lee urges Cal to understand is that we cannot gain “the glory of the choice,” or “free will” without “fire,” or “a strong sense of sin.” In other words, in order to exercise “the great choice,” we must grasp the evil in our own souls. Clearly, East of Eden presents a human paradox in which characters must awake the evil in their own souls and suffer a keen sense of their own sinful nature before they can attain “the glory of the choice,” or “free will.” Because it gives man free will, this tenet fundamentally rejects the Puritan doctrine of predestination, according to which God, by an absolute selection, saves the souls of some and abandons the souls of others. However, Lee and the novel’s unnamed narrator, while asserting that even the worst soul is always capable of choosing the best, both appear to refuse to endow some characters such as Adam Trask and his son Aron with “free will” because of their own inherent nature. The point is that teleologists, including Aron, who fail to face cruel realities, cannot exercise “a great choice,” or “free will.” In other words, “free will” exists eventually only in non-teleologists awakening to the evil in their own souls. The one of purposes of this article is to illustrate that Steinbeck’s non-teleological thinking exerts a significant influence on his characterization and worldview. At any rate, the above tenet which essentially gives humans “stature with the gods” (EoE 305) seems to deliberately contradict the Puritan doctrine of original sin as was stated above. Even so, I believe that this tenet paradoxically and simultaneously overlaps with that same doctrine since both of them emphasize that individual believers must recognize, first of all, the evil in their souls before they can attain a potential reformation of their character. In his article, “Steinbeck on Man and Nature: A Philosophical Reflection,” Richard E. Hart describes Steinbeck as a “soft determinist”(48) and properly reveals that “Philosophically and aesthetically, Steinbeck can be both an environmental determinist, broadly construed, and a ‘humanist’ whose characters illustrate strong ethical qualities of choice and action”(49). But obviously, much work remains to be done in the assessment of East of Eden in order to understand the very concrete collision and ultimate reconciliation between determinism, focused on Puritanism, and the theory of free will. For this reason, Steinbeck’s characterization here should be reanalyzed with new sensitivity to these conflicting doctrines. The