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John SteinbeckA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
The novel explores darkness as a physical and spiritual motif. Charles and Cal have dark skin, dark hair, dark eyes, and a dark aura. Their darkness emphasizes the lightness of their blond brothers—and vice versa. Characters seem automatically attracted to Adam and Aron but immediately put off by the darkness of Cal and Charles. This prejudice stems from the mark of Cain in the Bible, which Charles obviously has in the form of a dark scar on his forehead. Cain’s punishment after killing Abel is to walk the Earth a scarred man. The dark mark on Cain’s forehead will pass down through the generations, marking all his descendants as sinful. Charles and Cal’s physical darkness becomes almost a self-fulfilling prophecy. Because they’re treated as plausibly bad and unattractive, they lean into that identity and act bad. Their spiritual darkness links to their physicality—and to the love withheld from them because of their dark exterior.
The novel follows two sets of brothers, the second pair of which parallels the first pair. The half-brothers Adam and Charles are close in age, and their conflicts center around Charles’s violent temperament, for which the trigger is his jealousy and resentment that their father loves Adam more, even though Adam does nothing to deserve that love.
By John Steinbeck
Cannery Row
Cannery Row
John Steinbeck
Flight
Flight
John Steinbeck
In Dubious Battle
In Dubious Battle
John Steinbeck
Of Mice and Men
Of Mice and Men
John Steinbeck
Sweet Thursday
Sweet Thursday
John Steinbeck
The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights
The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights
John Steinbeck
The Chrysanthemums
The Chrysanthemums
John Steinbeck
The Grapes of Wrath
The Grapes of Wrath
John Steinbeck
The Harvest Gypsies
The Harvest Gypsies: On the Road to the Grapes of Wrath
John Steinbeck
The Log From The Sea of Cortez
The Log From The Sea of Cortez
John Steinbeck
The Long Valley
The Long Valley
John Steinbeck
The Moon Is Down
The Moon Is Down
John Steinbeck
The Pearl
The Pearl
John Steinbeck
The Red Pony
The Red Pony
John Steinbeck
The Wayward Bus
The Wayward Bus
John Steinbeck
The Winter Of Our Discontent
The Winter Of Our Discontent
John Steinbeck
To a God Unknown
To a God Unknown
John Steinbeck
Tortilla Flat
Tortilla Flat
John Steinbeck
Travels With Charley
Travels With Charley
John Steinbeck
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