I finally finished this! Of course, I'm writing in on the last day I have >.< I'm real smart. If I could have a few proof readers or someone else who has read the book give me some pointers, I'd love them!
[pre]Character Sketch
The central theme of the novel East of Eden is that, as humans, we have the choice to do good or evil. In the book, Caleb Trask is the most influenced by this idea, and because of it, he is my favorite character.
Throughout the story, Caleb is forced to make decisions and to understand whether he is evil because it is in him to be evil, or because it is his evil. From Caleb’s childhood he’s mean to his brother, but not because enjoys being mean, but because he wants to be loved like Aron, his brother, is. “From his first memory Cal had craved warmth and affection just as everyone else does. If he had been an only child or if Aron had been a different kind of boy, Cal might have achieved his relationship normally and easily.” (440) I don’t believe Cal was ever evil as a child, because he just wanted to be loved and he couldn’t get it. He tried to make his father proud, but instead his father just thought little of him in comparison to Aron. Adam says, “…Do you know, Lee?—I’m proud of him. Terribly proud. This makes me feel good. I wish Cal had some ambition.” (484) Adam doesn’t even stop to think: does Cal have ambition? He assumes that he doesn’t because he isn’t like Aron. This is another thing that made me feel sorry for Caleb, and like him. He was the one to convince Aron to leave for college early. Aron doesn’t really have any ambition—Cal has ambition for him.
One of the reasons I like Caleb so much is because he’s human. The other characters are straight good or evil, but Caleb has the ability to do both. He prays to God, “Let me be like Aron. Don’ make me mean. I don’t want to be. If you will let everybody like me, why, I’ll give you anything in the world, and if I haven’t got it, I’ll go for to get it. I don’t want to be mean. I don’t want to be lonely.” (377) Even at a young age he didn’t want to be mean, when his meanness came from his want to be loved. Cal also knows when he does wrong, and he feels bad about it. “He knew that he had to tell his guilt to his father and beg forgiveness.” (565) This is something that Cathy never shows in the book. To me, Cathy symbolized Caleb’s evil side but this small want of his, the fact that he knows he should ask forgiveness, is what makes him different from her. He says to Cathy, “I was afraid I had you in me.” “You have,” said Kate. “No, I haven’t. I’m my own. I don’t have to be you.” “How do you know that?” she demanded. “I just know. It just came to me whole. If I’m mean, it’s my own mean.” (462) At this point in the novel, Caleb has realized that he is different than Cathy.
Paralleling the story of Cain and Abel, Caleb wants to win over his father’s love. To do so, he gets a job to make back all the money that his father lost in a bad attempt at shipping lettuce across the country. Even though it was an attempt to buy his father’s love, I still liked that Caleb did this. He tried for his father. Despite that, his father still thought little of him and felt like the money he had made was dirty, and he refused to accept that. “No. I won’t want [the money] ever. I would have been so happy if you could have given me—well, what your brother has—pride in the things he’s doing, gladness in his progress. Money, even clean money, doesn’t stack up with that.” (541) I felt so bad for Cal, because again he was compared to his brother. This was the last time that Cal would be compared to his brother; it drove him to fulfill his place as Cain and to emotionally kill his brother, and in the end be guilty for his brother’s death in the army.[/pre]
