"A Dread of West and a Love of East" The Opening of East of Eden

The novel wasn't originally titled East of Eden in Steinbeck's imagination. He used "The Salinas Valley" as the working title. And that's the focus of the plotless first chapter. Most readers find it an odd, unpromising, and slow opening to the book. But even a great American writer like Melville includes chapters on whaling equipment in his classic Moby-Dick! And perhaps these chapters have a purpose.

The opening chapter establishes the setting, and the California valley plays a major role in the book. The valley – its fertile and arid land, its towns – becomes a character.

But Steinbeck is already planting a metaphor in this opening chapter: the dual realities of good and evil. He uses the opposite directions of east and west, with east, of course, alluding to the Genesis Eden story – "And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the Land of Nod, on the east of Eden" (Genesis 4:16, King James Version).

Notice this almost throw-away sentence in that opening chapter:

"I always found in myself a dread of west
and love of east."

The narrator, in the quote above, is talking about the mountains on each side of the Salinas Valley, which represent good and evil. And the valley sits in the middle. Most of the action in the book takes place in this valley, with a view of the mountains. (We are going to see several binaries in the book; it wouldn't be an overstatement to suggest that each of these binaries presents a choice between good and evil.)

"East" represents home in Connecticut on the East Coast. And "Eastern" religions and culture, which will later be personified by a main character in the book. And East of Eden represents the fallen world in which we live. So, we all live in the East in some way.

West represents the American West, a land of possibilities, the land to which the two primary families in the book move. And Western civilization, perhaps epitomized by Samuel Hamilton.

Other explicit references to East and West later in the book develop the theme. In Chapter 15, we read, "For some reason the mountains to the west of the Salinas Valley have a thicker skin of earth on them than have the eastern foothills, so that the grass is richer there." (Steinbeck Centennial Edition, 154) This cannot be only a statement of geoscience.

East was preferred (loved in fact!) at the beginning of the novel, now the West is "richer."

And in chapter 36, we will hear about the two grammar schools in Salinas, East End and West End, with a focus on the West End school. The characters attend West End, "since the East End School was way to hell and gone across town." So, education takes place in the West.

What are we to make of these contrasting directions?

We might trace a subtle ideological movement from a preference for East to one for West in the novel. Or at least an alternating swing between the two.

Or we might be content to see ourselves and the book's characters as settled in the valley, in the middle, of these two great moral traits of good and evil. We find it difficult to choose.

Or we might wish to side with the Genesis story and Steinbeck's novel title and proclaim our place as East of Eden.

Welcome to a beautiful, tragic story. Happy reading!

"I still think it is The Book, as far as I am concerned. Always before I have held something back for later. Nothing is held back here. This is not practice for a future." John Steinbeck, Journal of A Novel: The East of Eden Letters, 124

Summer Reading Schedule

Week of June 1-7: read chapters 1-8
Week of June 8-14: read chapters 9-14
Week of June 15-21: read chapters 15-19
Week of June 22-28: read chapters 20-24
Week of June 29-July 5: read chapters 25-30
Week of July 6-12: read chapters 31-39
Week of July 13-19: read chapters 40-48
Week of July 20-26: read chapters 49-55

A Benediction (Or Miscellaneous Thoughts)

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