Beyond Eden

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Cain after killing his brother Abel. Marble statue by Henri Vidal

Jenseits von Eden ( East of Eden in English ) is a novel by the American writer and Nobel Prize winner in literature, John Steinbeck . The family saga was published by Viking Press in New York in 1952 and became a bestseller . Steinbeck is said to have regarded Beyond Eden as his magnum opus ; At least with readers, it is still his most popular novel to this day. The 1955 film adaptation of Elia Kazan with James Dean in the leading role also became world famous , although it only covers the last quarter of the book.

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Steinbeck tells the three-generation story of two families against the background of the history of the USA between the beginning of the civil war and the end of the First World War . While the happiness and suffering of the Hamilton family can be seen as representative of the fate of immigrants, the Trasks are burdened with the Old Testament contrast between good and evil and the hatred of the son, who is less loved by the father, for the brother. This topic is formulated in the 34th chapter: “People are entangled - with their lives and thoughts [...] in a network of good and bad. [...] Virtue and vice were the warp and the chain of our earliest consciousness and they will form the fabric of our last, regardless of all changes [...] of all changes in economy and way of life. ”In the discussion about the interpretation of the Cain and Abel story, the Chinese servant Lee presents his interpretation ("timschal"), which is taken up in the closing words and can be understood as the author's message: "You can rule over sin" (24. Kp.), d. That is, that one is not at the mercy of one's fate, but has a choice.

First part

The first part alternately tells the stories of the three protagonists who meet in the Salinas Valley near King City in California (11th and 13th ct.): Samuel Hamilton lives there with his large family on a ranch (cp. 1, 2 u. 5), Adam Trask and his young wife Cathy settle in their area. In retrospect, the reader learns how the two of them got married: Before that, Adam (born 1862) lived with his father Cyrus (briefly participated in the civil war) and his brother Charles in Connecticut and after his military service wandered through the USA as a tramp (Kp 3, 4, 6, 7, 10), Cathy Ames spent her sheltered childhood and youth with her parents in Massachusetts (Kp. 8 & 9). Using their example, the author develops his worldview of the Cain-and-Abel polarity: Man in the tension between purity of mind and demonic abyss: "We are Cain's rungs" (Chapter 22) and have a choice.

Cyrus leads a tough regiment on the Connecticut farm. The wives must submit and attend to the household. The sons Adam and Charles from their first and second marriage had a rough childhood. Both are of an athletic stature, Charles always a little more skilful and usually the first and fastest, Adam a little more thoughtful and sensitive. The younger and stronger Charles always holds his hand over his brother, as long as he does not dispute his priority. Cyrus was a soldier for a short time, suffered an injury in the first hour of an act of war and came back to the farm with a wooden leg. He commands the sons with military severity. However, he only wants to send Adam to the army because he prefers him to his brother Charles.

The situation on the farm escalates when Charles, out of jealousy, beats up his favorite brother Adam in a blind rage and would have murdered him with an ax had Adam not hidden in the bushes of a moat. A short time later, Adam initially joined the army for five years. After the death of his second wife Alice, the father joins the government as a military advisor and comes to a large fortune, which he bequeaths to his sons. Charles is left alone on the farm, working hard to make it bloom while neglecting himself and the household. He has no steadfast partner in human isolation, but has fun with prostitutes in the small town's saloon every two weeks.

Adam and Charles initially remain in lively correspondence in which Charles talks about himself. He misses his brother, is looking forward to his return and has the household set up for him. However, Adam fears arguments with his irascible brother and extends the service for another five years. Then he wanders through America like a tramp. He is caught twice and sentenced to forced labor for six months each in road construction. He finally returns to the farm penniless. Charles welcomes him happily, but in the hope of finding out after his father's death why he preferred Adam to him even though he loved him. In a clarifying conversation, Adam says that he never loved his father, thus reassuring Charles. This now has the father for himself. Both are now wondering what to do with their father's inheritance. Charles cannot imagine how he legitimately got such a large sum and suspects he embezzled money. However, Adam sees no cause for suspicion and persuades his brother to accept the inheritance. You are now rich and both of that money can lead a life without financial worries.

in the 8th and 9th chapter the narrator changes to the story of Cathy Ames and describes her as a demonic femme fatale . Even as a child, the beautiful, cold-hearted girl has a predisposition for evil. She does everything for her own benefit - including her body. As a ten-year-old she instigated two boys to engage in sexual acts with her and, after the discovery, puts the blame on them. After extreme punishment by their fathers, they are sent to a reformatory. Taking advantage of her magical attraction to men, Cathy receives jewelry and valuables that she claims to have found. At first, your gullible parents also accept the strange explanations. When she no longer wants to go to school, however, there are arguments with her father and mother. After the punishments, Cathy plays the obedient daughter for some time and finally avenges herself cruelly for the blows received: She sets the house on fire, killing the parents, and loots the safe in the father's shop. She disguises her disappearance as being kidnapped by a tramp.

Cathy now calls herself Catherine Amesbury and wants to become a prostitute. During the interview, she immediately turned the head of the brothel king Edwards. The business man and family man, who had previously been cool in calculating, becomes a slave to her, makes her his lover, buys her a house and furnishes her. He suppresses the fact that he can be excluded from her. When Cathy, contrary to her principles, loses control one day drunk and Edwards shows her true feelings, he gets angry and wants to take her to one of his brothels as punishment. He brutally beats her up and leaves her half dead on the street.

Adam and Charles find the badly injured Cathy on their doorstep. Adam takes care of her and is immediately drawn to her. Charles, however, sees through the cold, calculating nature of Cathy and wants to get rid of her as quickly as possible. This immediately begins with her sly game: She marries Adam out of calculation in order to get her refuge. But in her diabolical instinct she betrays him on the first night with his brother who is equal to her in vice (both have scars on their foreheads reminiscent of the mark of Cain ), who feels confirmed in his assessment of his sister-in-law and who enjoys this triumph over Adam's naivete .

Second part

In the second part of the novel, Adam Trask moves to California with his wife Cathy, where he buys the Sanchez Ranch in the Salinas Valley near King City. Cathy is pregnant, whether by Charles or Adam remains open, and has tried unsuccessfully to have an abortion. Adam does not recognize the one-sidedness of the love relationship and projects his own feelings into the cold being of his beautiful wife. He believes he can force the luck with Cathy, who did not want to move to California with him from the start and only gave in for financial reasons. Adam wants to convert the decrepit old Spanish country estate from inherited, perhaps illegally acquired paternal money into a Garden of Eden for himself and his family . He does not see that his entire project lacks the ideally pure basis. To irrigate the fertile soil, Samuel Hamilton, experienced in inventions and skilled in the art, is supposed to dig a few wells and build lifts operated by windmills to transport water. The father of nine, Samuel, also helps with the birth of twins. But Cathy rejects husband and children. When she regains her strength, she wants to leave her family. Adam, shaken by his wife's behavior, locks her in the chamber, but Cathy shoots him in the shoulder and leaves the house.

Cathy goes into hiding as Kate in Salinas and works as a prostitute in Fayes Etablissement, one of the two brothels that work inconspicuously and unspectacularly and are therefore tolerated by the state authorities to relieve the sexual needs of single and married men. There she quickly wins the trust of her colleagues and the puff mother Faye, who loves Kate like a daughter and uses her as the sole heir in her will. However, Kate wants to quickly take over the operation and introduce a new business model with sadomachistic offers. So she mixes medication in the food and drinks Fayes, so that it dies after a long period of illness.

Meanwhile, Adam is slowly recovering from the serious gunshot wound to the shoulder. He falls into a deep depression, gives up his renovation plans for the farm and does not care about the twin sons. This is raised by his Chinese servant and initially unsuccessful philosophical advisor Lee. When the situation has not improved after more than a year, Samuel Hamilton, the second philosopher, confronts Adam, even hits him and brings him to his senses. Together with Lee they come up with names for the children. They philosophize about the biblical story of Cain, who killed his brother Abel, the central motif of the book. After all, they name the twins after the biblical characters Caleb and Aaron Cal and Aron.

third part

In the third part, John Steinbeck first introduces the Hamilton family. Samuel Hamilton (of the same name as Steinbeck's grandfather) was hit hard by the untimely death of his daughter Una. His other children notice how he is visibly aging. You choose to take care of it alternately. Olive (mother of the narrator) and her husband Ernest Steinbeck are the first to take care of him and invite him and his devout wife Liza to come to Salinas. His son Tom remains alone on the farm. He will later take his own life there because he feels guilty of wrong treatment for the death of his sick sister Dessie. Samuel knows that he will not return and that he will soon die. He says goodbye to Adam, his servant Lee and their eleven-year-old sons Cal and Aron.

The three adults talk again about the interpretation of the biblical story of Cain. Lee had interviewed Chinese scholars about this and learned Hebrew with them to understand the original text. According to his interpretation, man is not condemned to sin by Cain's fratricide, but has the freedom to choose to do good or bad. To free Adam from his illusions about Cathy, Samuel tells him the truth about her and her infamous brothel. He gives him the choice of whether to mourn his love further or to free himself from his lethargy and start a new life.

After Samuel's funeral in Salinas, Adam wants to see for himself Cathy's life. Confronting her opens his eyes. She tells him that she despised him and always thought he was a pushover and that even Charles could be the father of the twins. He also accounts for her: it is not he who has deficits, but her mind is deformed and, unlike most other people, she lacks any feeling. Despite outwardly unimpressed attitude, Cathy is deeply affected that she has lost power over him. Her self-confidence is fading and her suicide is on the horizon.

Adam tries a reorientation. He buys a car from Samuel's son Will, takes care of the children's education and plans to buy a house in Salinas so that his children can attend better schools. He also wrote a letter to his brother Charles after more than ten years. But he only receives news of Charles' death. This left Adam and Cathy each with half of a considerable fortune. Adam is now struggling whether he should tell this to Cathy, who is in hiding. But in the end he decides to obey his brother's request and informs Cathy of her inheritance. However, the latter does not understand Adam's generosity and sense of duty, either sees it as a new proof of his simplicity or suspects a wicked trick behind it to induce her to reveal her identity and take revenge on her.

Cal and Aron grow up in fraternal competition, competition and also mutual affection. Occasionally they ask about their mother. Adam and Lee then tell, as always, that she died and was buried far away. But the twins also hear rumors that she is still alive. Once Cal overhears Adam's conversation with Lee and learns that Cathy works as a prostitute in Salinas. After the move, Cal tries to find out the truth.

fourth part

In the fourth part of the novel, Adam Trask loses most of his fortune due to a good but non-working idea of ​​transporting vegetables from California in refrigerated trucks to the east coast in winter and is ridiculed by the locals. His sons suffer from the remarks made by their classmates, v. a. Aron wants to finish school faster than planned and move to a university town. He has joined a strict religious group and wants to become a pastor. He tries to win his beautiful friend Abra Bacon over to the idea of ​​sexual abstinence and idealizes the girl in his mind along the lines of the pure Madonna. Although his plan to study and a straightforward, non-business-oriented way of life reinforces the respect of his father, who shows him more and more his affection, Abra does not like him. She cannot recognize herself in his image of her, feels instrumentalized and wishes for a completely normal family life with children. She separates more and more from him and is increasingly interested in Cal. At Stanford University , Aron leads a secluded hermit existence and intensifies himself further into his ideas, which he describes in detail in letters to Abra. In reality, he is dissatisfied with the academic world and wants to give up his studies, but does not dare to tell his father.

Cal has since found out more about the mother. He secretly pursues her until he confronts her in her brothel about her disappearance. She honestly answers his questions about herself and her relationship with his father. On the one hand, he feels repulsed by their nature and their way of life, on the other hand, he also feels similar destructive traits in himself. He suspects that if his unworldly, idealistic brother knew about his mother, he would break inside.

In the last part of the novel, the increasingly clear contrast between Cal and Aron and the Cain and Abel tragedy develops. Cal suffers from his brother's favoritism and wants to force his father's love through a special act. Together with Will Hamilton, he pursues a business idea that is superior to that of his father. He speculates that the war will last for a long time with supply bottlenecks and buys the bean harvest from farmers when they are planted. He later sells them at a profit to the British purchasing commission, which needs all supplies to feed the soldiers, which drives up the price. He gives the profit of $ 15,000 to his father on Thanksgiving in the presence of his brother in order - as he admits to himself - to buy his favor and love. But Adam rejects the speculative gain. He doesn't want to be given any money earned through the war with the many dead, he would rather have sons who make something of their lives and support an idea like Aron. Cal is hurt by the rejection and moral reprimand. Ironically, Adam refers to Aron's expected exam successes and does not know that Aron will drop out. Cal wants revenge on what he believes is wrongly preferred brother. He leads him to the brothel and laughingly shows him his mother. Aron can not cope with reality and reports as an alleged 18-year-old (in fact he is only 17) for military service.

A second storyline that runs parallel in time depicts Cathy's last intrigues. Her former colleague Ethel suspects that Cathy poisoned her boss Faye and blackmailed her. She then puts her guardian Joe Valery on her. He suspects the background, wants to exploit the situation financially and threatens with hints of his boss. Cathy gets more and more involved in her own machinations and the encounters with Adam and finally her son Aron are the decisive factors for her long-considered and prepared suicide. She even veils this and incriminates Joe, who is arrested with stolen valuables and the will in which she bequeathed her fortune to Aron and accused of murder. Adam cries when he hears about Cathy's death. He now wants to enlighten Aron. But when he asks Cal where his brother is, the latter answers similar to Cain in the Bible: "Do I have to take care of him?"

Aron falls on his first assignment in France. When the news of his death arrives, Adam suffers a stroke that paralyzes him and soon leads to his death. Cal feels guilty about the chain of misfortune he started and wants to run away, but Abra leads him back to his father. On the sickbed he forgives his son and signals to him the Cain and Abel interpretation developed by Lee, that evil should not be accepted as an inheritance, but that people could fight it. Cal will presumably marry Abra after hints about their mutual love and life ideas in the last chapters. They could run Adam's ranch together and try to bring the message to life.

Bible motifs

The title Beyond Eden goes back to the 1st book Mose (4,16 LUT ). Cain, cursed because of his fratricide of Abel, but protected from blood revenge by a sign of God , "went away from the face of the Lord and dwelt in the land of Nod , beyond Eden, to the east."

The biblical story of Cain and Abel takes center stage twice. In the first part of the novel, Charles seeks his brother Adam's life. In the fourth part, Cal is indirectly involved in the death of Aron (report to the army) and also of his mother (suicide after meeting Aron) and his father (stroke after Aron's death). The main character Adam , father of the different sons, is seduced by Cathy, the personified evil, and ironically wants to plant a Garden of Eden just for her. The first letters of the names Charles-Caleb and Adam-Aron leave no doubt about the parallels to Cain and Abel.

Another protagonist is named Samuel. Like his Old Testament namesake Samuel, he warns prophetically against evil (15. Kp. No. 3).

The AC ranks are continued by Cathy and Abra. The name of Abra, the friend of the two brothers, alludes to Abraham and could be a reference to the progress of human history after Cain and Abel. At the end of the novel, the connection between Cal and Abra is suggested: As a young Adam-Eve couple, they could work in a world "beyond Eden" on Adam's ranch and try to face the sins of life in their new garden in daily confrontation and find a way along the lines of Samuel and Lee.

Narrative form

Essentially, the plot is told chronologically in personal form from the perspective of the main characters, supplemented by authorial overviews of the story or the people's views of the world. Individual passages about Samuel and Elizabeth (Liza) Hamilton and his family, v. a. about their daughter Olive and her husband Ernest Steinbeck, are presented in first-person form by the unnamed grandson or son. Since the names of the characters in the novel, their places of residence and many details correspond to those of Steinbeck's mother's family, the autobiographical reference is evident.

Film adaptations

In 1955, the film Beyond Eden was released , but it only focuses on the events in the fourth and last part of the novel. The film was directed by Elia Kazan based on a script by Paul Osborn ; it played James Dean as Cal , Julie Harris as Abra , Raymond Massey as Adam Trask and Richard Davalos as Aron Trask . The film received four Oscar nominations, but only Jo Van Fleet received one for portraying mother Kate . Beyond Eden , James Dean starred in the first of his three major film roles and became a popular film classic in the decades that followed.

In 1981, again under the title Jenseits von Eden , a six-part series directed by Harvey Hart based on a script by Richard Shapiro. This covers all four parts of the novel. The leading roles of the first generation played Jane Seymour as Cathy / Kate , Timothy Bottoms as Adam Trask and Bruce Boxleitner as Charles Trask . The next generation played Karen Allen as Abra , Hart Bochner as Aron Trask and Sam Bottoms as Cal Trask . The series won two Golden Globes (for Best Mini-Series and Jane Seymour for Best Actress in a Mini-Series). She also received an Emmy (Outstanding Art Direction) and was nominated for three more.

German-language editions

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ John Steinbeck by Harold Bloom , 2003, p. 66; see Google Books