This paper deals with the evil between the characters in East of Eden as well as how they affect one another.

Essay by centralflrexHigh School, 11th gradeA+, November 2004

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East of Eden is an in-depth look at different people who are all related to one another and the effect they have on each other. Written by John Steinbeck, this book deals with good vs. evil in Salinas Valley during the early 1900's. It also displays the amount of evil that is in one family and how it grows among people. Caleb and Cathy are the main characters with evil boiling inside of them. Cathy, the most evil character, leads a different life in the second part of the book and changes her name to Kate. The book also describes Caleb's desire to become good. In the Trask family, primarily Charles, Cathy and Caleb, we see the work of evil and the effects these evil characters have toward each other and also toward the other Trask family members.

The character that represents the most evil is Cathy, later known as Kate.

As a child, Cathy has evil personalities: "When I said Cathy was a monster it seemed to me that it was so" (Steinbeck 184). She devises evil plans and has an evil mind that makes her like a monster. Howard Levant states, ."..in terms of a serpent, from the shape of her features and her flickering tongue to her dislike of light" (Levant 379). Cathy, like a snake, has evil qualities that are with her throughout her entire life.

She wasn't a normal girl like the other girls in her town. Cathy dresses different, and she enjoys her style (Steinbeck 74). She also has another strange characteristic; she enjoys thoughts of sex. Cathy, at a very young age, realizes that she holds power when it comes to sex: "Cathy learned when she was very young that sexuality with all its attendant yearnings and...