East of Eden Innocence Quotes

Poor Abra—she is down with sex, even if Aron isn't. It's also really naïve of Aron to string Abra along in a relationship when he is the one who wants to remain celibate. The point is that he can't imagine someone as "good" as Abra (we used scare-quotes because he's the one who envisions her as good) having any sexual desire, since he himself doesn't really have any. Again and again we're going to see Aron not realizing that he is not the only person in the world. Mature it is not.

Wailing about the so-called dirtiness of a place like Salinas isn't exactly mature, and Aron is way too old to be throwing tantrums. What's more, he clearly doesn't know what he's talking about. As Lee points out, Salinas isn't any cleaner or dirtier (dirtier in this case refers to morality, not to dustiness) than any other run-of-the-mill city. So this is not exactly an encouraging sign that Aron will do well in the real world.

Abra is playing Freud here and pointing to a more G-rated version of Aron's Oedipus Complex. Clearly Aron, who is freaked out by sex in general, doesn't want to literally have sex with his mom; but she is someone he wants, in the sense that anybody wants a mother. And whose fault is it that mommy is gone? Aron's certainly not about to blame his beloved and long-lost mother, since she is everything good and a bag of potato chips as far as he's concerned, so naturally it must have been mean old daddy who sent her away.