One of Steinbeck's best!

In literature, the proper use of irony helps to develop the character’s persona in the story. When a reader finds out that there is something unexpected in the story, this is usually the result of irony. In John Steinbeck’s East of Eden, the quite complex characters are what make the book so enjoyable to read. Lee is a far more significant character than any other in the story. Steinbeck uses irony by portraying Lee as a simple-minded servant. There are numerous occasions where Lee fixes a problem in the Trask family. Lee is the reason that the Trasks stayed together as long as they did. He is a parent to Aaron, Cal, and Abra, a friend to Adam, and a philosopher of life.

Throughout the book, Lee’s social status presents tremendous irony. Being a servant, he is of a lower class than all other people. However, it’s evident that Lee is the most superior character in the story. For example, in a conversation with Sam Hamilton, Lee is asked about himself.

“Lee,” he said at last, “I mean no disrespect, but I’ve never been able to figure why you people still talk pidgin when an illiterate baboon from the black bogs of Ireland, with a head full of Gaelic and a tongue like a potato, leans to talk a poor grade of English in ten years”.
Lee grinned. “Me talkee Chinese talk” he said.

“Well, I guess you have your reasons. And it’s not my affair. I hope you forgive me if I don’t believe it, Lee.”
Lee looked at him and the brown eyes under their rounded upper lids seemed to open and deepen until they weren’t foreign any more, but man’s eyes, warm with understanding. Lee chuckled. “It’s more than a convenience,” he said. “It’s even more than a self-protection. Mostly we have to use it to be understood at all . . . . If I should go up to a lady or a gentleman, for instance, and speak as I am doing now, I wouldn’t be understood.”

“Why not?”

“Pidgin they expect, and pidgin they’ll listen to. But English from me they don’t listen to, and so they don’t understand it . . . . I think I can guess what your next question is.”

“What?”

“Why am I content to be a servant?”

“How in the world did you know?”

“It seemed to follow.”

“Do you resent the question?”

“Not from you. There are no ugly questions except those clothed in condescension . . . . But a good servant, and I am an excellent one, can completely control his master, tell him what to think, how to act, whom to marry, when to divorce . . . ” (Steinbeck, 162-165)

This conversation between Lee and Sam shows that Lee is only hiding behind the status of a servant, but in actuality, he is an intelligent, English speaking American. It’s odd for Lee to hold trust in people, but he immediately trusts Sam Hamilton when they meet. Sam Hamilton’s understanding of Lee is important because Lee now has someone to talk to about his insights on life.
Lee’s superiority to the other characters in the story is true in many different aspects. In this passage, Steinbeck explains how Cathy can’t control Lee and how this presents her with frustration. “He made her uneasy. Cathy had always been able to shovel into the mind of any man and dig up his impulses and his desires. But Lee’s brain gave and repelled like rubber. His face was lean and pleasant, his forehead broad, firm, and sensitive, and his lips curled in a perpetual smile” (160). Lee is obviously unique if Cathy, a quite conniving and manipulative person, cannot control him.

When Cathy left the Trask house after the twins were born, there wasn’t anyone to take care of them. Adam was in no shape to raise the twins because of the recent physical and emotional trauma he had faced. Therefore, Lee took charge and became the surrogate mother to the twins.

“Who takes care of the boys?” Mrs. Bacon asked.
Adam laughed. “What taking care of they get, and it isn’t much, is Lee’s work.”

“Lee?”

Adam became a little irritated with the questioning. “I only have one man,” he said shortly.

“You mean the Chinese we saw?” Mrs. Bacon was shocked . . . . “Lee raised the boys, and he has taken care of me . . . . But now Lee’s going away. I don’t know what we’ll do” (343).

Steinbeck adds to his use of irony towards Lee at the end of the story. When Lee tells the nurse to leave Adam’s room so he can talk with him privately, she says “’I’m not in the habit of taking orders from chinks’” (601). I was very surprised at this remark since Lee had done so much to prove that he was not just a “chink.” My only understanding of this quote is that Steinbeck wanted to prove to the reader how stereotypical people could be.

At the end of the story, Lee makes a great effort to help keep what is left of the Trask family. The Trask are now at their worst moment, as Adam is on the verge of death, Cal is overwhelmed with guilt, and Aron has been killed in the army. When Adam is lying in bed, barely moving, Lee comes in to talk to him. He explains to Adam that Cal has committed a sin and cannot live with himself. He believes that if Adam gives Cal his blessing, he will able to move on in life. “Help him, Adam-help him. Give him his chance. Let him be free. That’s all a man has over the beasts. Free him! Bless him!” (602) Adam’s only word, timshel, meant that Cal had the choice to become a better person and live a good life. Without Lee’s help, Cal would have felt sorrow throughout the rest of his life.

It is my theory that without Lee as a character in the story, there wouldn’t be a story. He has been the catalyst to almost all of the tribulations fixed in the story. If Lee never raised Aaron and Cal, they would have been estranged from each other or even deceased very early into their lives. He also helped Adam through the worst times of his life. He basically kept the whole Trask family together. As a Chinese servant, Lee was thought of as inferior to most people. Steinbeck proves us all wrong with his use of irony in East of Eden.