Previous
Foil
Genre
Explanation and Analysis:
East of Eden is a prime example of a genre informally known as the "Great American Novel." Literary works that garner this title tackle the American mythos in some way, shape, or form, attempting to capture the essence of the country's culture. The plots of these novels generally involve travel across the continental U.S. and allude to or heavily feature the period of American westward expansion. Great American Novels, though they have the ability to be patriotic, are usually anything but, often bringing to the surface contradictions and horrors endemic to American life. There is an epicness and grandiosity to the American myth that novels like East of Eden simultaneously embody and criticize.
East of Eden is also a piece of allegorical fiction focused on reimagining the biblical creation myth in Genesis. Steinbeck does not simply map biblical events onto characters of his own making, but rather applies and experiments with the concepts, themes, and archetypes that Genesis presents. Through the process of allegoricizing the Bible, Steinbeck highlights important and non-coincidental similarities between the Christian mythos and the American mythos. Many of the first American colonizers were Christians and justified their expansion in Christian terms, using explicitly biblical language. It is highly probable that many Americans saw the colonization of places like California as a return to Eden.
Related Themes:
