Undercurrent
The Elasticity and Hold of Cal and Kate’s Emotional Connection in East of Eden
written by: Cynthia Sharp
John Steinbeck’s classic American novel East of Eden about the relationship between fraternal twin brothers Aron and Cal, one perceived as good and the other as bad by their religious father, was adapted to a screenplay by Paul Osborne. The 1955 film set primarily in Salinas Valley, California, stars James Dean as Cal, the brother who appears to behave like the legendary Cain from the Bible, his name even starting with the same letters. Richard Davalos plays Aron, the favored sibling who symbolizes Abel, the brother who was murdered in the biblical story, which plays out in this version with Cal getting Aron to enlist in World War 1 while Cal stays home with Abra, the girl they both want, finally winning their father’s approval. Abra, played by Julie Harris, starts out dating Aron but finds herself having more chemistry with the daring bad boy Cal. Raymond Massey and Jo Van Fleet are Adam and Kate, the twins’ parents. Kate abandoned the family in the backstory shortly after giving birth to the boys, having to struggle with her controlling husband to break free. Though she was missing for most of his life, it’s Cal’s interactions with their mother Kate that are arguably the most dramatic set of scenes in the film.
Kate is the undercurrent that is the pull for Cal’s most dramatic actions and emotions. She’s similar to him; she explains him. Though they don’t have a huge number of scenes together, their exchanges take place at key plot points with a tension that’s exciting. There’s a lot at stake for both of them and we don’t know what will happen. They’re the unpredictable characters.
The film opens with Kate approaching the bank and Cal waiting on a bench as she passes, then following her. He’s ridden the rails to Monterey, a nearby town, to find her. He’s figured out that she runs a whorehouse. The audience doesn’t know yet why this intense but seemingly harmless teen is stalking her in daylight, just that his reasons are emotional to the point of breakdown. When the pimp of the house tries to shove him off, Cal says, “Tell her I hate her.” Everything comes out as anger—at her, at himself, at life, then turns to guilt and low self-esteem. It’s dramatically intriguing that Cal is so overcome with emotion when he finally gets close to Kate that he lacks the communication skills to know what to do. He’s found the mother who left him, shot their father, and changed her name, who is now in a high-up power position in a gambling whorehouse. Cal’s awkwardness, bizarre social behaviour, and inability to find the right words force him into his body for expression, which James Dean pulls off with incredible presence, creating intense drama.
The most compelling moment in the dialogue between Cal and Kate is at midpoint when Cal has the gall to ask her for a loan of five thousand dollars and she gives it to him, probably because he’s like her; he gets why she couldn’t live in isolation on the ranch with his father’s excessive religious doctrine, and he’s got business sense, like she does. It’s a dramatic dialogue of spoken and unspoken negotiation and recognition as mother and son feel each other out. There’s a relationship between them, a mutual respect, drive with disregard for excessive traditional ethics. “Maybe you are more like me,” Kate says, “I got the toughest house on the coast…and the finest clientele. They sneak in at night…and I walk in this front door in the daytime…And I built it up from nothing.” Cal has the street smarts, audacity, keen business sense, and courage of his mother, yet wants to be a hero to his father, helping to restore the patriarch’s business losses. Kate continues, “Your father. He’s the purest man there is, isn’t he…And now I give you $5000 of the money that I made…to save him his purity. If you don’t think that’s funny, you’d better not go to college.”
Cal borrows the money to earn back what his father lost on a previous investment. He tries with everything in him to win or even buy his father’s love with hard farming work, yet even this outstanding effort growing beans which go into high demand on account of the war is met with disapproval. Cal snaps and forces his sheltered brother to see the truth about their mother. It’s at this point that Aron gets drunk and enlists in the war, essentially a death sentence, while Cal is then helped by Abra to finally be of genuine service to their father, who’s had a stroke. Cal gets to be legitimately appreciated while Abra is sent to his death.
In a film that deals largely with Cal’s relationships with his naive older brother and religious father, the truth about his mother is the elasticity that drives Cal’s best and worst behaviour. East of Eden breaks open the strength of bloodlines, of knowing and not knowing truth—Cal needing to know his mother to understand himself and Aron being better off emulating a pure father who may or may not be biologically related. One twin thrives in truth, the other in the norms of cultural stability as the story breaks open the crossovers between them. Steinbeck and Osborne leave readers and viewers to contemplate the psychology of the human condition and societal factors that build this dramatic world.
- Undercurrent - May 8, 2025
