Steinbeck Knew Dad Better Than I Did -- "Literary Landmarks" of East of Eden -- "Mapping the Land of Nod": The Spatial Imagination of John Steinbeck's East of Eden -- Bio-Politics and the Institution of Literature: An Essay on East of Eden, its Critics and its Time -- Out of Eden: Dualism, Conformity, and Inheritance in Steinbeck's "Big Book" -- Mimesis, Desire and Lack in John Steinbeck's East of Eden -- An Image of Social Character: Elia Kazan's East of Eden -- East of Eden County: John Steinbeck, Joyce Carol Oates and the Afterlife of Cathy Trask -- The Status of East of Eden in Slovenia and the Former Yugoslavia -- A Paradoxical world in East of Eden: The Theory of Free Will and the Heritage of Puritanism -- The Unconventional Morality of East of Eden -- A Steinbeck Midrash on Genesis 4:7 -- Author Biographies -- Index
This volume includes one dozen new and recent essays on John Steinbeck's East of Eden (1952). First commissioned by the late Professor Michael J. Meyer, a renowned Steinbeck scholar, the volume was originally designed to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the novel's publication. The collection contains critical writings from a variety of literary fields. These include the biographical essay, travel essay, essays on varied themes in Steinbeck's works, writings on critical approaches to Steinbeck and also a new essay on Elia Kazan's film adaptation of the novel
