Blog #1: Rhetorical Strategies

· Imagery: “The spring flowers in a wet year were unbelievable. The whole valley floor, and the foothills too, would be carpeted with lupins and poppies. Once a woman told me that colored flowers would seem more bright if you added a few white flowers to give the colors definition. Every blue petal of blue lupin is edged with white, so that a field of lupins is more blue than you can imagine. And mixed with there were splashes of California poppies. These too are of a burning color- not orange, not gold, but if pure gold were liquid and could raise a cream, that golden cream might be like the color of the poppies,” (Steinbeck 4)

· Symbolism: Charles Trask’s scar

· The Narrator: Olive Hamilton’s son.

Rather than making an ordinary- seeming novel, John Steinbeck beautifully colors his allegorical novel East of Eden with the use of rhetorical strategies such as imagery, symbolism, and the use of a unique narrator. When describing one of the main settings of the novel, Salinas Valley, Steinbeck uses imagery, which paints the scene and can make the reader really see the flowers blooming and creating a gorgeous scene for the novel (see quote above). Steinbeck’s imagery not only helps the reader to envision beautiful scenes such as describing the valley in full bloom, but can also use it to describe horrible events, such as the stream running through Salinas Valley in the winter when, “the river tore at the edges of the farm lands and washed full acres down; it toppled barns and houses into itself, to go floating and bobbing away,” (Steinbeck 3-4). His choice of words such as “tore” and “toppled” create imagery by depicting the river as a destructive creature and help the reader to vividly experience the horror of the raging river. John Steinbeck’s symbolism also has a strong effect on the novel by relating to a story most readers know all too well. One of the characters, Charles Trask, obtains a scar while trying to move a boulder. The scar is unusual, for rather than becoming lighter like most scars, it becomes darker than the rest of his skin. It symbolizes the biblical “mark of Cain,” which is even more greatly emphasized when he states, “I got plenty other scars. It just seems like I was marked,” (Steinbeck 46). This refers to when in the biblical story of Adam and Eve when God punishes Cain for killing his brother, Abel, with a mark that will not let anyone kill him, hence, the “mark of Cain”. To narrate the story, Steinbeck chooses a unique narrator. Although not omniscient, the third person narrator tells the story without much reaction of opinion as to what occurs. The narrator is revealed to be one of the character’s grandsons, although he isn’t present in the story himself. The only time he seems to show himself is at the beginning of man chapters where he will set the scene, or tell a memory of his mother. From the use of these rhetorical strategies, John Steinbeck produces a beautifully crafted novel.