Constructing a False Reality

 I just finished reading Steinbeck’s East of Eden, and found it to be a very moving and emotional story. In it, I came across an interesting theme, one that I had encountered before in Jane Eyre.

In East of Eden, Adam constructs a false reality for himself, convincing himself that Catherine, his wife, is someone who she is not. Warnings from other people are not enough to sway him from his favorable opinion of his wife, and the shattering of that ideal thrusts him into a decade-long period of depressed state of mind.

Similarly, when vengeful Cal shows Aron the impurity of his mother, his world falls apart. He becomes disconnected from family, and dies in the army. His girl, Abra, becomes sad and disconnected from Aron, because she sees that he has made a false version of her, constructing her, into the image of his mind, into someone she is not. She is thus unable to express herself freely and make herself understood.

It stood out to me that Abra so shamelessly became Cal’s companion, abandoning his brother and burning his letters. Perhaps her lack of regret is an indication that failure of mutual understanding and continuous evaluation in a relationship destines the relationship to failure.

Similarly, in Jane Eyre, St John pressures Jane into following a route of absolute purity, and divinity, by becoming a missionary and urging her to come with him. But, her love of Edward Rochester, calls her back into the world she knows to be imperfect, like the flawed but comfortable face of Rochester, her true love.

The pervasive idea of reality as opposed to one’s mental construction of reality suggests to me that when one’s conception of other people, and their environment reveals itself to be unsubstantiated, then chaos ensues. Connected to Dr. Peterson’s framing of this matter, hearing suddenly about infidelity in a relationship assumed to be loyal results in the onslaught of disorder and confusion in one’s life.

If I were to condense my thoughts on this matter, it would be this--that life is unpredictable, and staying afloat in the tumultuous ocean of life requires constant wariness and an eye out for disorder.