John Steinbeck's Honesty

: In Steinbeck’s novel, he combines fiction and real facts about his own family history. By combining these aspects, Steinbeck is able to be more honest with the attributes and actions of the characters since they represent his own family. Doing this also allows the readers to connect to his life. An autobiography is a written description of someone’s life written by that person. Although Steinbeck writes about his family’s history and their attributes, he does not write the story about himself and or in first person which distinguishes this book from a typical autobiography. Also, there are no personal details about him that are obvious, it is just mostly about his family. I think that Steinbeck’s extremely personal relationship to the material
When she was young and angry and annoyed at her parents, she burned her own house killing her parents. Then she used a man, which ultimately came to love her, for his money and tried to leave him but he ended up beating her almost to death.. Next, she used Adam because he was sensitive and gullible for Kate. Next, she became a whore to blackmail and potentially ruin the lives of men in power, just for her pleasure. And as one of her last act of evil, she killed the owner of the brothel house, Faye, so she could get the money and control over the house. Over the course of the novel, I have been able to understand why she has a burning desire to hurt others for her own pleasure. I believe that one of her motivation for evil is control. She likes to have her own authority and control others but she does not like being controlled. For example, when Kate was young and tried to run away, her parents caught her and prevented her from running away. Their power over Kate angered her so much that she ended up setting her house on fire, killing both of her parents. Another example is when Kate killed Faye, the former owner of the brothel. Kate wanted to control the brothel but when Ethel found out about Faye’s murder, she blackmailed Kate. Kate ended up forcing Ethel to move away. Lastly, Kate also took photos of the men in power that came to the brothel so she could have control over them and blackmail them.
This word seems to free those who have done bad things and need forgiveness. Timshel translates to “thou mayest”. This ultimately means that people are able to choose between good and evil, and are able to choose their own destiny. In his book, Steinbeck is trying to say that that we as people have the choice to forgive ourselves by choosing timshel. And he is also saying that feeling guilty allows us to make the decision about choosing timshel since we want to free ourselves from the bad deed we did. Also in the novel, Steinbeck still uses timshel to talk about family inheritance and free will. In the novel, Aron was forced upon with the family inheritance because his father favored him and apparently Kate did too. He felt so much pressure by this that he went into the army and sadly was killed there. Unlike Aron, who has the burden of his family on his shoulders, his brother Cal, does not. Cal has the choice of free will because his family does not like him nor respects him as much as they respect Aron. But Cal does not realize that he has the choice of doing what he wants and being free from the craziness that is his family. In my own life, I have the choice of being evil or good, so the decision to have regrets or happiness in my life, is totally up to