Symbols are objects, characters, figures, or colors
used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.
The Salinas Valley
Although the Salinas Valley in northern California provides
the setting for several of Steinbeck’s works, its role is arguably
greatest in East of Eden. In fact, The
Salinas Valley was one of Steinbeck’s working titles for
the novel, which Steinbeck described as “a sort of autobiography
of the Salinas Valley.” The narrator opens East of Eden with
a nostalgic, lyrical description of the valley, recalling the sights,
smells, and other memories of his Salinas childhood. He also establishes
the valley as a symbolic arena for the struggle between good and
evil: the valley is enclosed by the inviting Gabilan Mountains to
the east—“light gay mountains full of sun and loveliness”—and the
“dark and brooding” Santa Lucia Mountains to the west. Described
in such a manner, the mountains symbolize the human struggle to
navigate between good and evil. The Salinas Valley between them
can be seen as a representation of the lands where the biblical
Adam and Eve live after God banishes them from Eden. After being
driven from Eden, Adam and Eve are forced to live in a world in
which the dangers and temptations of evil are ever-present. Likewise,
the main characters in East of Eden struggle to
exercise free will in the face of the inherited evils of their ancestors.
Charles’s Scar
Early in the novel, Charles Trask loses his temper while
struggling to move a large boulder from his yard and, in the process,
cuts his forehead badly with the crowbar he is using to pry out
the rock. The wound heals but leaves a large, ugly scar that, unlike
most scars, is darker than the skin that surrounds it. Charles’s
scar corresponds to the “mark of Cain” in the biblical story of
Cain and Abel. After God discovers Cain’s murder of Abel, he banishes
Cain to the lands east of Eden and puts a mark on Cain so that no
one who encounters him will kill him. In this regard, the mark is
not a curse but a form of protection. In East of Eden, Charles’s
own words highlight this symbolic connection. In a letter to his
brother, Adam, Charles writes about the scar: “I don’t know why
it bothers me. I got plenty other scars. It just seems like I was
marked.” Charles’s words make the symbolic connection unmistakable
and reinforce the relationship between Charles and Adam as a surrogate
for the relationship between Cain and Abel—a relationship that Cal
and Aron repeat in the next generation.
