Cain summary

Cain Summary
Summary (Masterplots, Fourth Edition) print Print document PDF list Cite
While Adam, Eve, Abel, Zillah, and Adah pray to God, Cain stands sullenly by and complains that he has nothing to pray for because he had lost immortality when Eve ate the fruit from the tree of knowledge. He cannot understand why, if knowledge and life are good, his mother’s deed has been deemed a deadly sin. Abel, Adah, and Zillah urge him to cast off his melancholy and join them in tending the fields. Alone, Cain deplores his worldly toil. Tired of the repetitious replies to all his questions, replies that refuse to challenge God’s will, he is no longer sure that God is good.

At the conception of this thought, Lucifer appears to explain that Cain’s mortality is only a bodily limit. He will live forever even after death. Cain, driven by instinct to cling to life, at the same time despises it. Lucifer admits that he also is unhappy in spite of his immortality, which is a cursed thing in his fallen state. He launches into a bitter tirade against God, whom he describes as a tyrant sitting alone in his misery, creating new worlds because his eternity is otherwise expressionless and boring to him. Lucifer exults that his own condition is at least shared by others. These words echo Cain’s own beliefs about the universe. Long has he pitied his relatives for toiling so hard for sustenance, as God had decreed when he banished Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden.

Lucifer confesses that the beguiling snake had not been a disguise for himself; the snake was merely a snake. He predicts, however, that later generations of humanity will array the fall of Adam and Eve in a cloak of fable. Cain then asks his mentor to reveal the nature of death, which holds great terrors for Cain. Lucifer promises to teach Cain true knowledge if Cain will worship him. Cain, however, having refused to worship even God, will not worship any being. His refusal is, according to Lucifer, in itself a form of worship.

Adah asks Cain to leave with her, but Cain claims that he must stay with Lucifer, who speaks like a god. Adah reminds Cain that the lying serpent, too, had spoken so. Lucifer insists that the serpent had spoken truly when it had promised knowledge from the fruit of the forbidden tree; humanity’s grief lies not in the serpent’s so-called lie but in humanity’s knowledge of evil. Lucifer says he will take Cain with him for an hour, time enough to show him the whole of life and death.

Traveling with Lucifer through the air, Cain, watching with ecstasy the beauty around him, insists upon viewing the mystery of death, which is uppermost in his mind. The travelers come at last to a place where no stars glitter, and all is dark and dreadful. As they enter Hades, Cain again voices his hatred of death, the end of all living...

(The entire section is 1126 words.)

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Cain Characters
Characters Discussed (Cyclopedia of Literary Characters, Revised Third Edition) print Print document PDF list Cite
Adam

Adam, the first man. He orders Cain to leave the family after the murder of Abel.

Eve

Eve, Adam’s wife, the first woman. Because she was bitter at the expulsion from Eden, Cain blames her for his undying bitterness against God and death and claims that this bitterness was transmitted to him before birth.

Cain

Cain, Adam’s elder son. He refuses to pray because of the expulsion from Eden and is sullen at the loss of immortality. He hates work and doubts God’s goodness. Tempted, he follows Lucifer and expresses a wish to remain in Hades. Jealous of his brother Abel, Cain strikes him a blow, killing him. Marked by an angel, Cain leaves his family. Destined to grow no living thing, he is a bitter man.

Abel

Abel, Cain’s young brother and victim. He is a good man who worships God sincerely. He is killed for telling Cain that he loves God more than life.

Adah

Adah, Cain’s wife. She tries to keep her husband from following Lucifer to Hades. When her husband is banished from the family, she accompanies him, taking their children. She is a faithful wife.

Zillah

Zillah, Abel’s wife, a good woman.

Lucifer

Lucifer, the fallen angel. He says he did not appear as a snake to tempt Eve. He exults that Cain shares his misery.

Enoch

Enoch, the son of Cain and Adah.

Cain Essay - Critical Evaluation
Critical Evaluation print Print document PDF list Cite
Lord Byron’s Cain is subtitled A Mystery, but the mystery is not that of “who did it”; the story of Cain’s murder of Abel is well known. It is a mystery, but one that is a type of drama that had been used in medieval times to illustrate stories from the Bible. Unlike medieval mystery plays, Cain, like Byron’s Manfred (pb. 1817, pr. 1834), is a closet drama, meant to be read, not staged.

The story of Cain and Abel had intrigued Byron for years. When studying German as a boy, he had read Salomon Gessner’s Der Tod Abels (1758; “the death of Abel”) and came to think of Abel as “dull.” Cain has three acts, and the principal source is the fourth chapter of the book of Genesis. Byron’s Cain, however, is different from the Cain of Genesis. The influence of the Romantic movement is reflected in Byron’s Cain as he strives for independence and for understanding of a world he did not create.

Byron’s play includes Adam, Eve, Abel, and Zillah, but as minor characters. To Cain, Adam has been “tamed down,” and Eve has lost that intellectual curiosity that “made her thirst for knowledge.” Abel is a simple shepherd boy, and Zillah, like Abel, is happy with her simple life. Cain is alienated from all of them and is deeply conflicted.

Cain cannot understand why he should be punished for something someone else did. In addition, he cannot grasp why a God who has the power for good should set up circumstances so that humankind would fail and, therefore, be forced from Paradise and sentenced to till the earth and be subject to death. As the family gathers to pray, it is evident that Cain is not taking part. When asked why he is not giving thanks to God, Cain replies that he has nothing for which to thank God. Unlike his family, he is not content with “what is.” Byron has set Cain up as an outsider. He cannot be satisfied living outside Eden, and he questions the justice of being punished for a deed committed before he was born. He stands outside Eden, gazing at what should be his just inheritance, as the elder son. He reasons that God had deliberately tempted Adam and Eve, causing their fall, and he doubts God’s actions.

Cain’s doubt provokes the appearance of Lucifer, the fallen angel. The character of Lucifer is complex and serves as a catalyst for the tragedy of act 3. Byron’s Lucifer is different from John Milton’s fallen angel, Satan, in Paradise Lost (1667, 1674). Milton’s Satan is gigantic and is more human in his physical deformity. Byron’s Lucifer is less human and states he is not the serpent who had tempted Eve; however, he is, indeed, like Milton’s persuasive Satan, and he feeds Cain’s doubts by flattering Cain’s wisdom. By articulating what Cain feels, he makes Cain believe he has found someone who understands him, unlike his family. However, when Lucifer asks Cain to worship him, Cain refuses. In act 2, however, Cain will demonstrate his trust by traveling with Lucifer as his guide.

It is in act 2 that Byron anticipates certain scientific discoveries, referring, for example, to the world as having been created ages before the world that was created by God in Genesis. In a letter to his friend and fellow poet Thomas Moore, dated September 19, 1821, Byron identifies the creatures that Cain sees in act 2, scene 2 as “rational Preadamites, beings endowed with a higher intelligence than man, but totally unlike him in form.” The idea that there were beings on Earth before Adam was a common, although heretical,...