Evil Against Evil In John Steinbeck's East Of Eden

Evil against Evil

In the novel, East of Eden written by John Steinbeck, there are numerous examples of Steinbeck’s characters falling into the hands of evil. Charles and Cal were the supposed antagonist in the story, following in the footsteps of Cain in the biblical story of Cain and Abel. While both Charles and Cal each have their fair share of moments with evil in the novel, there are two characters that really leave a strong impact throughout the novel. Being new parents, Cathy and Adam each had their own responsibilities to their children. However the two both neglected their parental duties each for different reasons but both left the same lasting effect.

Let’s begin with Cathy‘s actions. Cathy is a very clever and devious character who only puts in effort to manipulate people if it is beneficial to herself. The beginning of Cathy’s spree of taking advantage of people and destroying them starts when Cathy is the age of ten. Her first, if you would call it “victim” or in this case victims, were two fourteen-year old boys who she framed for supposedly raping her. Since humiliating the two boys and having them sent off to a “house of correction”(77) wasn’t enough for Cathy, she drives her Latin teacher, Mr.Grew to commit suicide on an altar. However, this is not the last of Cathy’s manipulative ways. This is only the beginning. A few years later Cathy has failed to runaway from her

Without a mother figure to teach them right from wrong or yell at them for eating all the snacks in the cookie jar, this left a mark on both of their hearts where only a mother’s love and support can take place. Although Adam could care less about his children and disregarded them when they needed him the most, the twins were lucky enough to have Lee there as a standing father in Adam’s place. Both Adam and Cathy deserted the job of parenthood, but who was the worse of the