EAST OF EDEN Decoded: Biblical Motifs Behind the Masterpiece

This brief excerpt from the third chapter of East of Eden could easily serve as the motto for Elia Kazan’s adaptation. The character portrayed by James Dean saw through his father, yet did not abandon his desperate attempts to win his love. This small statement encapsulates the entire tragedy of Caleb Trask—a boy who simultaneously loved and hated his father.

Elia Kazan approached the adaptation of John Steinbeck’s novel in a rather original way. In agreement with the American writer, with whom he shared a close friendship (Kazan was one of the people Steinbeck entrusted to revise East of Eden), the director, along with screenwriter Paul Osborn, focused only on the last few dozen pages of the monumental book, starting the film’s action from the fourth part, Chapter 37. They limited the plot to the last generation, making the young outsider Caleb the protagonist. Many Steinbeck fans may not have liked such a bold adaptive choice, but the author himself approved, knowing that Kazan was intensifying the novel’s drama while bringing to the surface its essence—a generational conflict imbued with biblical motifs; an intimate family psychodrama set against the backdrop of Great History.

The film’s action does not begin in the mid-19th century, as in the literary original, but on the eve of World War I. Kazan and Osborn made the struggle for the father’s affection between two sons—the rebellious Caleb (Cal) and the obedient Aaron—the film’s narrative backbone. Their conflict, of course, mirrors the Old Testament duel between Cain and Abel (the reference is suggested by the first letters of the characters’ names). It’s no coincidence that the climax of the film version of East of Eden is the scene of gift-giving. Aaron presents his father with the news of his engagement to his partner Abra (played brilliantly by Julie Harris, a student at the Actors Studio), while Cal offers money he earned from growing beans, hoping to compensate his father for a painful financial failure he suffered a few months earlier. The father, like the Old Testament God, accepts Aaron’s gift with gratitude but rejects Cal’s offering, explaining that he couldn’t benefit from the bean profits, as the price had soared due to the U.S. joining the war.

The character of Aaron and Cal’s father is imbued with the traits of the Old Testament God. He is strict and unyielding, reserved and demanding. Yet, at the same time, he is the father of Caleb and Aaron, who represent modernized versions of Cain and Abel. In this context, his name—Adam—is no coincidence. Adam Trask is the biblical Adam after being expelled from Eden, a bitter old man whose best years are behind him. A man who once lost the love of his life and is tormented by the awareness of his failure. Kate, Caleb and Aaron’s mother, in Adam’s eyes, represents nothing less than the lost biblical Eden.

Raymond Massey portrayed the older Trask—a veteran actor associated primarily with the theater, a traditionalist, and a perfectionist in his craft. One doesn’t need to be an expert to guess that someone like Massey would have a hard time accepting someone like Dean—his working style, his penchant for improvisation, and his spontaneous behavior on set. To Kazan’s delight, the conflict on set escalated with each passing day. The director recalled:

There was an antagonism between them that I did not try to suppress. I must shamefully admit that I encouraged it—well, maybe I’m not ashamed at all; in directing, everything is fair game.

The antagonism Kazan referred to was most evident in the two extraordinary scenes—reading the Bible at the table and giving the birthday gift. In the first scene, under the director’s instruction, Dean interspersed the text of the Holy Scripture with mumbled obscenities, driving Massey into a fit of rage. The fury that screen Adam Trask experiences is entirely real—a brilliant artistic provocation suggested by Kazan and carried out by Dean. In the second scene, Jimmy showed his full initiative.

According to the script, Adam was supposed to reject Cal’s gift, causing him to immediately flee the house. But what happens on screen? After his film father refuses the son’s present, Dean slowly walks toward his father, his face transforming into a mask of pain, tears streaming down his face, and a quiet, steady moan of despair escaping his lips. A completely confused Massey begins to back away—this wasn’t in the script. Dean approaches his film father and hugs him, simultaneously dropping the money he was holding onto the floor. A marvelous scene, one that would never have happened if not for Jimmy’s flawless acting intuition, and let’s not forget, Massey’s endurance. The seasoned actor didn’t break character, though it’s easy to see how surprised he was by the turn of events.

East of Eden owes a lot to James Dean—his charisma, intuition, and photogenic appeal. Here, the young actor delivered his best, most moving performance, one could almost say, the role of his life. A life that was soon to end tragically in a car accident. It’s intriguing that Dean was driving down Highway 466 to participate in a race in Salinas. The very same Salinas where John Steinbeck was born, the very same Salinas so poignantly described in East of Eden.