Timshel in Steinbeck´s East of Eden

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Recommended: Good versus evil struggle

Throughout Steinbeck's novel East of Eden, he captures the idea of Timshel through different characters. Many believe that Timshel is left in open, giving the character the choice. Moreover, Timshel is actually planted in one, they either fight evil with Timshel or give into the dark side.

Throughout the vivid text of Mrs. Trask, Steinbeck expresses her as a Timshel-less human. As he talks of her wild actions, confessing “to crimes she could not possibly have committed” (Steinbeck 15) and drowning “herself in a pond so shallow that she had to get down on her knees” (Steinbeck 15) the reader is able to discover that she is a woman struck with evil. As learned later in the book, Timshel means thou mayest, giving man the decision to choose between good and evil. As noted with her choice of suicide, Mrs. Trask is unable to escape to path of evil, mostly since she isn’t gifted with Timshel.

To convey his views, Steinbeck structures the sentences accordingly and uses a vast word choice and tone intertwined together. He opens with “Mrs. Trask was a pale, inside-herself woman” (St...

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