| John Steinbeck used elements of the Biblical story of Cain and Abel in his most significant works. In his early novels Steinbeck used the aspects of the Biblical story, but it was not until East of Eden when he wrote a true parallel of the story. In In Dubious Battle he uses the elements of duality, killing of a brother, and the curse of Cain. He uses the same attributes to some extent in Of Mice and Men and The Grapes of Wrath. In East of Eden he is very deliberate in his paralleling of the novel and the story. In The Winter of Our Discontent Steinbeck immerses the Cain-Abel story in the novel, the reader being left to find it. |
