Now that ‘East of Eden’ doesn’t have to be a perfect adaptation, it can just be a decent series

By Cadence Powers

Content Warning: This series contains explicit sexual material, explicit nudity, and mild violence. Please keep in mind the content warning when looking to view this series. 

“East of Eden” serves as an adaptation of what has been culturally indebted as American author John Steinbeck’s Magnum Opus. Director Zoe Kazan’s ambitious series spans the entire four-part, 600 page novel—following the Trask family through three generations, first in Connecticut and then in the Salinas Valley of California. 

The story opens on two brothers: Adam Trask (Christopher Albbott) and Charles Trask (Mike Fast). After Charles learns that their father loves Adam more, he almost kills Adam; as a result Adam joins the army. Upon his return home, Adam insists that a random woman who is found bloodied and near death at his and Charles’ door, Cathy (Florence Pugh), stays with them. Charles immediately tries to prevent this from happening. Adam then marries Cathy, furthering the rift between the two brothers. Adam decides to move himself and Cathy out to California, where the story will follow both him and Cathy on their separate paths: Adam parenting their two children—Aron (Joe Andrews) and Cal (Joseph Zada)—with the help of Lee (Hoon Lee), a Chinese-American servant and important fixture in the Trask family, and Cathy becoming a brothel-owner. 

The story in both forms of the narrative holds complex themes: intergenerational trauma, anguish, human depravity and sin. But behind all of it is the theme of Timshel, Thou Mayest. This is the idea that all people have capacity for good and evil, and capacity to make good and evil decisions. It explores ideas of circumstance, as well as how the past can shape the way that people make the decisions they do. 

The narrative frames itself through the the biblical narratives of Cain and Abel and the creation story, playing itself out through two generations of the Trask family. Adam and his brother, Charles play out the story, and as do their sons, Aron and Caleb. 

Cathy exists as a pseudo-Eve figure, who in the novel is a pure representation of evil versus in the series where she is portrayed as a woman who continually makes bad decisions that negatively impact the world around her. Samuel Hamilton (Ciarán Hinds), a wise, mentoring neighbor, serves as a prophet-type character, warning and advising Adam. 

All this to say, it’s a lot of content for a seven-episode mini-series to cover—though at the very least it can cover more than a three-hour long film would be capable of doing. Sitting at nearly seven hours long, the series has almost too much content to cover for such an amount of time, especially as it neglects the Hamilton family, who play a critical role in the novel, as a semi-autobiographical account of Steinbeck’s own family.

The Hamiltons add a lightness to the story that it wouldn’t have otherwise, but also show how even those who make good decisions will not necessarily reap the earthy rewards of those decisions. They are essential to the story itself, and not allowing the story to be grounded in them takes away some of the initial meaning from the novel. 

Cathy’s portrayal is the other main alteration from the source material. In the original text, Cathy serves as a representation of pure evil, her actions not motivated by anything other than psychopathy. In this adaptation, she has more sympathy for her character, though not by much. 

This is a very controversial decision, one which has caused a lot of tension among fans of the novel. After all, should the person who was the pure representation of evil have some humanizing characteristics? 

In my opinion, this humanization of Cathy’s character doesn’t make her any less evil. Instead, it haunts the watcher—that she was human and she had human motivations.  That she is a person whose selfishness allowed her to exploit others and commit heinous acts for the sake of her ambition. That she chose to make the choices she did, and even if the circumstances influenced her, it doesn’t justify her actions. 

While not necessarily the most accurate of adaptations, it is an interesting period drama covering a long span of American History. There are interesting themes and ideas, and the show does make you think about some of the content of the original novel. Though it does hone in on the core theme of Tishmel, it does not have the interconnectivity of community. 

However, an adaptation is not meant to be the original text. And as far as an adaptation goes, it is a decent one. I would not rewatch it, but for much of the same reason I would not reread the book. The content is dark in nature, but it does ask many questions that are interesting to consider. Because of the nature of the content, I would be careful in looking to view this series. 

Pictures are courtesy of Netflix.

East of Eden is available to watch on Netflix. 

Cadence Powers is a senior Professional Writing and Information Design Major. She is disappointed that, unlike in the book, there is no character named ‘John Steinbeck’ who is the narrator of the story. She thought that was the funniest part of an otherwise really dark book when she initially read it.