«Names are a great mystery»: Onomastic Structures and the Poetics of Moral Choice in John Steinbeck’s East of Eden

Abstract

This essay examines the ethical function of naming in John Steinbeck’s East of Eden. Drawing on the novel’s central naming scene and Lee’s exegesis of timshel, it argues that names do not determine destiny but open a space of interpretive and moral choice. Through four onomastic constellations – spanning Genesis, patriarchal inheritance, the female characters, and prophetic naming – the article shows how Steinbeck transforms biblical typology into a poetics of inheritance in which identity emerges through interpretation, responsibility, and the continual revision of received narratives.