John Steinbeck once explained, “Certainly, I do not think that the Cain-Abel story has ever been subjected to such scrutiny. Nor has any story been so full of meaning.” His words build the foundation of East of Eden, his literary adaption and interpretation of the biblical story of Cain and Abel. The scrutiny and meaning he gives to the story is one which digs deeper from the few chapters of Genesis and plays on the notion of choice that is threaded throughout the two main characters. Cain and Abel have been adopted by society to resemble the separate paths of good and bad, yet Steinbeck pushes back on this simplicity. Steinbeck takes this meaning and uses the motif of names which begin with C and A. Due the reference, the reader can assume that the C character is inherently bad and the A inherently good, yet that would be the opposite of the point. Their names don’t bind them to a life of good or evil, but rather emphasize the role of choice that we are gifted from God. Steinbeck does not make the choice easy, as his characters represent the grittiness and darkness that humanity battles with. Through the underlying notion of choice that is threaded in the generations of the biblical story of Cain and Abel, therefore Steinbeck’s East of Eden picks up the threads of the Genesis chapters to emphasizes the character’s ability to decide their fate—which is gifted and not chosen, in contrast to the markings of their C and A labels.