"But 'Thou mayest'! Why, that makes a man great, that gives him stature with the gods, for in his weakness and his filth and his murder of his brother he has still the great choice. He can choose his course and fight it through and win." - Lee
I love the theme of timshel that is woven throughout this book. East of Eden puts out the question - are we who we are because of our bloodline or our choices? Cal struggles with this throughout the last half of the book especially with knowing Cathy is his mother and fearing her blood is why he is bad. But Cal also tries to be good and attempts to make choices to benefit others. I really feel this whole book is built on the choices the characters make. Even though Cathy is described as a monster, her parents were obviously good people so she didn't receive bad blood. Cathy never choose to be good so she did not choose to conqueror her sins. What makes this theme of timshel so powerful is that we all struggle with sin and making the right choices. It's universal; everyone faces temptations and trials and sometimes we make good choices and sometimes we the wrong ones.
I find the end of the book very powerful with Adam's last word being timshel. Adam is giving his blessing to Cal to go forward with his life and choose to win. I think it is also the point in the book where Adam realizes the true meaning of timshel because his choice of favoring Aron has influenced Cal's choices. Giving the blessing of timshel, Adam is encouraging Cal to make the choose of winning.
"Thou mayest, Thou mayest!' What glory! It is true that we are week sick and quarrelsome, but if that is all we ever were, we would, millenniums ago, have disappeared from the face of the earth. A few remnants of fossilized jawbone, some broken teeth in strata of limestone, would be the only mark man would have left of his existence in the world. But the choice, Lee, the choice of winning!" - Samuel Hamilton
AN: Girls - I hope you all enjoyed East of Eden, my second favorite book.
I have to agree with your thoughts there. It's an amazing book, and I really liked watching Cal throughout the last half of the book. I love several of the characters, but he seems to be at the top of the list because of his struggles and desires to be anything but like Cathy.
ReplyDeleteAnd for me, that desire made him more human than his brother. Cal really wanted to live a life free from the burden of his parents decisions. This book really spoke a lot on the concept of Original Sin. But, it's true. We all desire freedom.
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