INTRO TO STEINBECK

East of Eden

STRUCTURE & STYLE

Third person limited omniscient (kinda…) Seen through the eyes of a Hamilton descendent…

Simple sentence structureLyrical sensory descriptions (see Ch. 1)

SALINAS VALLEY

King City

“And this is about the way the Salinas Valley was when my grandfather brought his wife and settled in the foothills to the east of King City.” (7)

City of kings?East…?

JOHN STEINBECK’S LIFE

Born: February 27, 1902 in Salinas , CAFather = John Steinbeck, Sr. Mother = Olive Hamilton was a former school

teacher and fostered in him a love a readingMaternal grandparents were Sam and Liza

Hamilton from the novel

STEINBECK’S LIFE

Studied at Stanford but never graduated

Learned about his subjects by working on local ranches, hanging out with migrant workers, studying the way people talked

STEINBECK’S LIFE

Private man Married three

times (one wife may be portrayed in “Cathy”)

Deep love for the downtrodden

Works reflect his social conscience

STEINBECK’S WORK

Cup of Gold was first novel

First critical success was Tortilla Flat

Most famous work was Grapes of Wrath

STEINBECK’S WORK

But…Steinbeck believed

this was his greatest work

Wrote this for his sons

Most autobiographical

East of Eden (1952)

Died in 1968-buried in Salinas

Journey of a Novel

“In East of Eden, I will tell the greatest story of all—

of good and evil, strength and weakness, of love and hate, of beauty and ugliness. I shall try to

demonstrate how these doubles are inseparable—how neither

can exist without the other and how out of their

groupings creativity is born.”

John Steinbeck

Reflect/Connect:

What did you learn about Steinbeck—or read in the book—that might already illustrate this philosophy?