Tuesday, March 16, 2010

East of Eden and Huckleberry Finn

     Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and John Steinbeck’s East of Eden have many similarities, yet they also have a few differences. Likewise, many of the themes and ideas such as the fight between good and evil, lying, and internal characters’ internal conflict and struggles become a major part to the story and how it plays out. However, the differences come about in the author’s different opinions of these struggles, Steinbeck continually shows through his novel that people have the right to choose, and oftentimes people will choose good over evil in the end. For the most part, Twain sees the evil in the world with a pessimistic outlook; evil people are not likely to change who they are, rather they will continually choose wrong if it conforms with society’s views.

     “We have only one story. All novels, all poetry, are built on the never-ending contest in ourselves of good and evil. And it occurs to me that evil must constantly respawn, while good, while virtue is immortal. Vice has always a new fresh young face, while virtue is venerable as nothing else in the world is.” In this sentence, Steinbeck stresses how everything, including our lives, is centered on the conflict between good and evil. Steinbeck’s opinion is that evil always changes to accommodate, but goodness always stays the same. Similarly, Mark Twain addresses the idea of good vs. evil. However, he is more cynical, addressing the conflict in a more negative way. Huckleberry Finn is faced with many hypocrites, liars, and vagabonds throughout his adventure. Twain uses a majority of his characters to point out the flaws in society and it’s lack of good, especially when it comes to the issue of slaves being property. However, it is symbolic that in the end, Caleb (who was constantly fighting doing what was wrong,) and Huck (who had to confront the issue of slavery head on,) chose to do good over evil in the end. The “good” side that they chose was the ultimate goal from the viewpoint of both authors.

     “Cathy was a liar, but she did not lie the way most children do. Hers was no daydream lying, when the thing imagined is told and, to make it seem more real, told as real. That is just ordinary deviation from external reality. I think the difference between a lie and a story is that a story utilizes the trappings and appearance of truth… But a lie is a device for profit or escape.” Steinbeck addresses lying head on, by telling readers what his own opinion of lying is. Throughout East of Eden, the characters who were really struggling with being evil or were already completely evil lied and twisted the truth to their gain. In the end, when Caleb’s brother Aron found out the truth, he could not handle it and ended up getting killed. This sad ending to an innocent character represented how lies can ruin a person’s life. Twain also believed that lying was wrong and hypocritical in many instances. In the church one day, the Grangerfords and the Sheperdsons received a lesson on brotherly love, while the next day, they were killing each other over an issue of marriage. However, Huck lied straight out many times throughout the book to protect his friend Jim from being captured. Contrastingly, Steinbeck’s strictly negative view on lying is truly different than Twain’s belief that lying is okay if it is used as a means to an end for the right purpose.

     The internal conflicts between Caleb from East of Eden and Huck from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn are startlingly similar. Steinbeck illustrates how Caleb’s mother was a monster, “And just as there are physical monsters, can there not be mental or psychic monsters born? The face and body may be perfect, but if a twisted gene or a malformed egg can produce physical monsters, may not the same process produce a malformed soul?” Caleb’s mother Cathy was infinitely evil, and she never changed. He was forced with the fact that his mother was an evil woman who constantly lied and ran a brothel house. Steinbeck’s character chose to overcome the sins of his mother by deciding not to be like her and to become a decent person despite the evil part of her that was in him. Likewise, Huck’s father was evil, he beat Huck and was extremely racist. Huck was confronted by the fact that society had told him his whole life that if he helped a slave that he would go to Hell. Like Caleb, Huck’s internal conflict was solved when he finally made his decision. “Alright then, I’ll go to Hell.” The difference between the two is strongly different in the sense that Caleb will not jeopardize what he feels is right, while Huck will consort to stealing, and lying to do what he feels is ultimately right.

     Although Steinbeck and Twain’s optimistic and pessimistic views seem to contrast each other, the two authors have the same views on many things. Evil is wrong; like their characters, you can overcome it whether it is passed on through genes or all around you in society. Lying is wrong, but in Twain’s view, it is occasionally okay to lie to serve the right purpose. We all face problems that must be resolved, however, whether our decisions are good or evil, we will ultimately decide in the end.

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