East of Eden is a 1952 family saga novel by American author and Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck. Exploring themes of depravity, beneficence, love , the struggle for acceptance, greatness, capacity for self-destruction, guilt and freedom. Featuring the lives of two families, the Trasks and the Hamilton, and their interwoven stories. The Hamilton family in the novel is said to be based on the real-life family of Samuel Hamilton, Steinbeck’s maternal grandfather. Steinbeck carefully establishes the setting with the description of the Salinas Valley in Central California. The story between the beginning of the twentieth century and the end of … Continue reading Struggle for acceptance, greatness, capacity for self-destruction, guilt and freedom.