EoE Part 1 Discussion Questions

[Jordan Simpson]

Don't read this if you haven't finished part 1 already! These are some
thoughts to get us thinking, feel free to respond to any or all of
them.


Steinbeck's novels often involve people at the bottom of the ladder,
those who are so poor they must scrap and scrape every penny to get
by. Already in the first part of East of Eden we see Samuel Hamilton
barely make enough to feed his family and Adam Trask wander across
America as a transient. p\Poverty is an important shaping force in
Steinbeck's characters, it partly defines who they are.

In Chapter 1, Steinbeck writes, "You can boast about anything if it's
all you have. Maybe the less you have, the more you are required to
boast."

How does poverty create such strong attachments? Does it always leave
us clinging tightly to the little we possess?

From Chapter 7: "He [Adam] developed a a love of poor people he could
not have conceived if he had not been poor himself."

Adam's life as a hobo gives him a love he could not have found as a
farmer or soldier. Do we need to live among people to love them? Can
we love the poor without becoming poor ourselves?

[C-lil]

Hey Jordan,

You said, "Poverty is an important shaping force in Steinbeck's
characters."

Thinking in terms of some of your initial insights, I wonder if
Steinbeck is actually attempting to flesh out a broader, all-
inclusive, definition for poverty. In my re-reading of Genesis 2-4, it
seems that while poverty resulting from the harshness of land is
certainly a result of the Fall, so is poverty related to parental/
familial rejection and jealousy (Cain and Abel) and poverty related to
distorted male/female relations/power and poverty related to distorted
relationship with God.

I like how you put it in your initial post, where you said something
along the lines of "this is Genesis 2-4 in a modern day context." I
guess I could really relate with and resonate with how real the pain
described in the book is to real life, and how this all represents the
brokenness represented in humanity's exit from the Garden.
.

[Audra Marvin]

I haven't read Curtis's email yet or your questions, Jordan. I just got the book from the library today. I will try to catch up soon, though, and then I promise to discuss!

[Jordan Simpson]

Sorry it's been a week since you posted, I've been waiting to see if
anyone else wanted to comment.

I like how you redefined poverty from merely a monetary issue to a
broader scope. Just as we can be rich in many ways there are plenty of
ways we can be poor. And we've all heard "money can't buy happiness,"
so we even understand that poverty in terms of money and possession is
not a fatal handicap to life. We've seen plenty of poverty throughout
EoE, and perhaps the poorest in terms of wealth (Sam Hamilton) is the
richest as well.

Coming back to the question I asked earlier, do you think we have to
have experienced being poor ourselves to understand those in poverty?
- understanding poverty in the broad sense you defined it. Do we need
to have felt rejection and distorted relationships to empathize with
those struggling though those situations?

[Alexander Butler]

I am not sure you have to be poor yourself when speaking on monetary
terms. However, there is a call to be 'poor in spirit' that helps us
find solidarity with all humanity. To your second question, have any
of us never felt rejection or participated in a distorted
relationship? I think the answer is no. The only being never to have
felt rejection was God, and then he was rejected by humanity. I think
there is a call to search our own life and recognize our brokenness
that will allow us to empathize with others. So many times we think we
are the only person to have experienced something or going through a
certain trial when in reality all of humanity has similar experiences.
As I read the book, I think I am in chapter six, I see in the
Hamiltons, the Trask, and Cathy Ames sharing similar experiences
despite their geographic locations. These characters have been poor,
rich, indifferent, and do not share a geographic location yet they all
have experienced rejection and distorted relationships that has led
them to do interesting (the language of interesting should include
weird, stupid, unlawful, or inhumane) things.
I am particular interested to see how their stories are interwoven and
what/how Steinbeck develops each character in reference to the idea of
rejection.

On May 30, 2:20 pm, Jordan Simpson <jsimps...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Sorry it's been a week since you posted, I've been waiting to see if
> anyone else wanted to comment.
>