East of Eden

The first few chapters of Part 3 emphasize Steinbeck’s assertions about the nature of free will and human accountability. Arguably the most important concept in these chapters is Lee’s discovery of the term “timshel,” a Hebrew word that means “Thou mayest.” If one may do something, the implication is that one doesn’t have to do it. This signals that people aren’t destined to do bad or good things. Rather, they have a choice in the matter; they may sin—but that doesn’t mean they have to. If this is true, then Cain chose to sin not because that was his inevitable journey as an all-powerful God designed it but because he chose to give into his bad impulses. If people truly have free will, a choice in how their lives unfurl, then the most important figure is the individual, not the society or the religion that informs their decisions. Having free will puts all the responsibility of being a person onto the individual and suggests that personality and drive matter more than genetics. In Part 2, Lee and Adam debated how to name the children, worrying that any name might curse their future. However, if timshel exists, then it’s up to Caleb and Aron to be good people if that’s what they want to be.

Samuel’s suspecting that Adam loves one son more than the other foreshadows the challenge that Caleb and Aron will face in exercising free will. Thus, history repeating itself has a foreboding tone. Adam’s favoring one son shows that he failed to gain emotional intelligence from his experience of how damaging Cyrus’s favoritism was to him and his brother, Charles. Adam’s relationship with his sons is precarious. He needs Lee to stay around to help him get to know his own kids. During these last 10 years, he hasn’t been getting to know his children, and he hasn’t been farming. Here, timshel rears up again. Adam has the power and the privilege to make a nice life for himself and his sons. The ground he bought is fertile, and his sons are his only family. Instead of embracing his ability to make a good life for himself, Adam lets the years pass him by. His wasted time in establishing his Eden reflects a character defect. Instead of taking full advantage of his individual freedom, Adam lets things happen to him passively. Not only is Adam uninvolved in his sons’ lives, but his relationship to them comes under threat when Cathy claims that the boys are Charles’s sons, not his. Although Adam resolves not to believe this, the claim foreshadows further conflict ahead. This is particularly important because when the boys were born, Adam noticed that Cal looked like Charles—and ostensibly Cal plays the Cain role because he tills the land, while Aron is Abel because he cares for the hares. In the Bible, Cain was a farmer, and Abel was a shepherd. If these parallels symbolize that Cal is Charles’s son and Cain, it will be Cal who must face Adam’s bias and the possibility that Charles is his real father.

Of course, Cathy may be lying about the twins’ paternity because she likes to manipulate Adam, but the dramatic irony here is that the narrative revealed Cathy’s affair with Charles just before she got pregnant. Adam may choose not to believe it, but she has planted the seeds of doubt. Now, the narrative invites analysis about individualism versus genetic codes—about whether Charles and, more importantly, Cathy can pass down their evil. If Aron and Cal discover who their true parents are, the fear of becoming bad like Cathy might subconsciously force them into making evil choices. Because this issue arises in tandem with the idea of timshel, Steinbeck sets the stage for discovery of whether the theory of free will is correct. Although Chapter 26 again pushes the philosophy of timshel and individuality, the narrator has doubted himself before and has proposed alternative ideas to the theories. In Chapter 26, Adam resolves once more to build his garden of Eden, while Lee reaffirms his desire to build his bookstore. Therefore, the two men have their individual dreams and wish to practice their free will in achieving these goals. The issue of Cal and Aron’s genetics and the possibility of self-affirmation foreshadow either confirmation that free will exists or a challenge to Lee’s assertion of timshel.

One more challenge to the idea of timshel is Cathy’s view of human nature. She tells Adam that all people are essentially bad—that they only appear good. Cathy decided early in her life to embrace the bad because the bad is in all humans and is indeed our natural state. Cathy’s idea of human nature contradicts Lee’s theory of timshel. The narrative has presented two different ideas about humans’ true nature and what they can control or not control in their lives.