By NANCY PATRICK

I have written before about my brain’s inability to relax. I think a lot about the ironies, complexities, injustices, and undecipherable events of life. You know the kinds of things to which I refer—family of origin, nationality, race, intelligence, opportunity, and gender.

Because a greater power than humanity has determined these factors, we can never know answers. That leaves me with the dilemma of how to manage my blessings in light of people without those blessings. Though not born with a silver spoon in my mouth, I have had a much easier life than most people in the world. 

Recently my son challenged me to read John Steinbeck’s East of Eden as he reads it, thus providing some interesting philosophical conversations for us.

The novel focuses on three generations of male characters who have volatile, complex, and sometimes violent relationships. Some of the dynamics involve fathers and sons, brothers, and even women and men. 

Cain and Abel

Steinbeck actually refers to that original sibling relationship in his novel. The story in Genesis 4 relates the tragedy of the first brothers, Cain and Abel. This rivalry ended in Cain’s murdering his brother Abel because he could neither tolerate Abel’s favored position nor God’s rejection of his own offering. His jealousy consumed him.

Steinbeck devotes important space to this story as his characters—Adam Trask, his Asian man-servant Lee, and his neighbor Samuel Harrison—discuss the language and intent used in the Bible to relate the story of Cain and Abel. He reveals the discussion’s importance at the end of the novel. 

Seemingly a trivial matter (the substance of the offering), God’s favoritism of Abel evoked in Cain a jealousy so all-consuming that it morphed into murderous rage. Why did God favor Abel? 

We offer an easy answer that God preferred Abel’s blood sacrifice over Cain’s grain offering. But that doesn’t really explain the innate desire in a child to win the parents’ approval and love.

Seemingly, Abel had thoughtfully designed his blood offering to include the fats of his best livestock while Cain had hastily put together his grain offering. The contrast resides not so much between the content of the offering as the attitudes and hearts of the brothers as suggested in Hebrews 11 where the writer states that God accepted Abel because of his faith.

In many families one child may seem “golden” while the other(s) win the silver or bronze prizes. Those children often feel cheated by their parents because through no fault of the children, their golden sibling has received unearned advantages and expressions of parental love denied the other children.

These differences occur sometimes simply because one child has a sweet, loving, generous nature while other children may lack those attributes. Although parents try to treat their children equally and would not admit they favor one child, the children themselves can sense the differences.

In the case of Cain and Abel, they vied for God’s love and approval. This rivalry resulted in murder. Most readers of the story assume that God curses Cain and his descendants. Even Cain cried to God that he could not bear his great punishment. However, God tells him— not so.

The consequences of Cain’s behavior result in the loss of his family and homeland as well as God’s favor, but he does leave Eden and establish a new family (east of Eden) in the land of Nod.

Steinbeck writes in the novel about Adam and Charles, another pair of brothers who exhibit the attributes of Cain and Abel. Adam, the “good” son, strives for fairness and righteousness while his brother Charles behaves as Cain did. Charles’ obsessive jealousy of his brother prompts him to treat Adam cruelly as if by punishing Adam, their father will think Charles is stronger and better than his brother.

Charles’ meanness appalls even himself. He doesn’t understand that the root of his evil lives in his voracious appetite for his father’s love. Why does their father love Adam rather than Charles?

Adam later fathers twin sons with a woman who has beguiled him. In his infatuation, he blinds himself to the hatefulness, rage, deception, and danger in this woman’s heart. 

After she gives birth to the twins, her desperation to get away from Adam and the babies triggers her attempt to murder Adam. Her evil nature results in her life of debauchery which includes prostitution, deceit, and murder. 

Adam’s sons, Caleb and Aron, grow up to become similar to Adam and Charles. Aron has a kind, sweet, innocent, aspiring, and pure heart. Caleb is the more material child who cannot understand or appreciate Aron’s purity. At the end of the story, Caleb does something so cruel to his brother that Aron plummets into a depression that leads to his death.

The stories of these brothers intertwine with the story of Cain and Abel that had puzzled Adam, Lee, and Samuel Harrison earlier in the novel. Lee had studied the language in multiple translations of the Bible to see if he could discern exactly what God’s words to Cain meant. 

Did the words convey a promise “thou shalt” triumph over evil, an order to triumph over evil, or a choice “timshel,” a Hebrew word meaning “thou mayest” triumph over evil?

Lee believes that the Cains of this world are not destined to do evil but may or may not choose it—the gift of free will. Lee had loved both Aron and Caleb and had understood them whereas Adam had not. He had loved the easy one and ignored the difficult one.

Lee recognized the pain of the Cains in this world. They can never quite measure up to the Abels. They lack the natural tenderness, softness, kindness, and goodness of their brothers. That does not mean they remain unredeemable. Timshel offers redemption to the sad and lonely and can even offer forgiveness to the sin-ridden heart.

Nancy Patrick is a retired teacher who lives in Abilene and enjoys writing