Time Theme Analysis

East of Eden covers an immense stretch of time—from the American Civil War to World War I. Accordingly, the novel displays a profound interest in the passage of time, the progression of history, and the relentlessness of change. The book opens with, and repeatedly returns to, an almost laborious cataloguing of the differences between seasons. This preoccupation with seasonal transitions, year after year, is a facet of the novel’s investigation of the relentless and yet cyclical nature of time and change.

In the same way that Steinbeck carefully records the physical change of the earth, air and sky over time, he records the changes of the body over time. We learn a great deal about how Sam Hamilton’s body ages—his wrinkled face and silver beard are dwelled upon by the narration at length. Notably Sam and his family can hardly believe that he is even capable of growing old. Time’s effect comes as a kind of shock to them. Adam’s mental sickness following the departure of his wife gets better over time—Sam notes that time is the perfect “tonic” for him. Catherine’s arthritis, in contrast, is a gruesome physical manifestation of time’s passage. She resents the aging and twisting of her face and body so much it inspires a manic kind of anger in her. Thus illnesses (which sometimes worsen and sometimes improve over time), aging, and death play a huge role in this multigenerational epic. They remind the reader of times inevitable passage and of the inescapability of change.

The novel also takes stock of the rapid technological progression and change that took place in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Steinbeck goes to great lengths to include myriad new technologies. Railroads, cars, planes, refrigeration, drills, windmills, conveyor belts, color photography, and advances in military technologies are all included, all given a kind of history in this book. Technological progress—and the excitement and anxiety surrounding it—also evinces the (often fearsomely rapid) advancing of time.

Steinbeck wrote this novel in the early 1950s. This was a deeply transitional era. Coming out of the Second World War, Americans demonstrated an enthusiasm and optimism for the future, but it was also a time of great nostalgia for a “simpler” past. New technologies were exciting testaments to American ingenuity, but (as in the case of the atom bomb) they could also gesture towards an even more violent future. This sense of instability, this constant question about what the future might hold, pervades this novel. What’s more, Steinbeck’s health was beginning to suffer around the time he wrote East of Eden. He was a lifelong smoker, and would die of heart disease in 1968, just over 15 years after East of Eden was published. The anxiety of the nation with respect to time and change is coded into this novel but so too is the anxiety of the individual; in many ways the book’s discussion of time reflects universal worries and questions about aging, illness, and mortality.