The Theme Of Passion And Responsibility In Shakespeare's East Of Eden

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A common theme for the characters in East of Eden is the classic war between passion and responsibility. Most of the characters tend to choose responsibility over passion, only because they lack passion. However, Cal escapes from the inevitable that everyone chooses—responsibility—and takes the path that leads him to his passion: to overcome the fate of evil and sins. Often times, Cal compares himself to Aron, which is in comparison to good versus evil. The story of Cain and Abel is the generation of Cal and Aron, while Cal has the ultimate fate of killing his brother and total damnation to wither with sin, he tries to alter that by “compet[ing] for attention and affection in the only way he knew—by trying to imitate Aron” (440). As he tries …show more content…

Growing up Aron had everything going for him; Adam sees this as an ambition within Aron and “wish[es] Cal had some ambition” (484). Having ambition is to have a goal. While Aron’s goal is to graduate and go to college, he feels like it is more of a responsible rather than a goal in the end. As for Cal, he lets passion drive his future. Instead of going to college like his father wanted him to, he took his passionate emotion to do business with Will. In the end, Cal is more satisfied with his actions than Aron; because while Aron’s having a miserable time in college, Cal feels a sense of accomplishment by obtaining $15,000. Being passionate led him to do a good deed and good deeds make up for the bad sins letting him become purer. His passion leads him to have redeeming …show more content…

It is an expectation that they live by. Most of them feel like it’s their responsibility to act as such because there is no passion to go against that. However, once a character gets a shot of passion, like Cal and Cathy, they are determined to reach that end goal because they have something that pushes them in that direction. Their passion is the force that pushes them to move, to be in motion, to change. In this case, Cal and Cathy has the passion to find the goodness in them. They want to redeem themselves and tries to fight against fate and expectations. By choosing passion over responsible it enables them to fight against their own

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