The Pastures of Heaven: Chapter 1

Stage setting and mythmaking

The first chapter sets the stage geographically and thematically for the novel. The initial events are set around 1776, which suggest a founding of kinds. This chapter, or prologue if you want to call it, is full ironies and contrasts: “the savage bearer of civilization,” “the disciplinarian corporal felt weak in the face of so serene a beauty,” “abominations” and “repentance.” More broadly, we see the contrast between a tale of enslavement, schism, violence on the one side and the beauty of landscape on the other. There’s also the element of tragedy: the corporal desiring to return to this land that he names The Pastures of Heaven and his contraction of small pox from a native woman and being confined to a quarantine inside of barn, the enslaver becoming the enslaved. A tad heavy handed, the first chapter sets the stage for readers to note the contrasts between human flailing and failings and the landscape sitting serene beneath their feet.

Following the parable that begins the chapter, we fast forward to the present where families, referred to initially as squatters, move into the valley, build fences, and plant trees. Steinbeck mentions that no one owns land and that, consequently, there are squabbles, suggesting that boundaries will be crossed and dividing lines in the community are opaque.

The first chapter concludes peacefully using the word “prosperously,” “at peace,” “rich and easy to work,” and “fruits of their garden.” Steinbeck seems to be alluding to the Garden of Eden, something that would be a recurrent theme in his work, beyond the overt references in East of Eden. By referencing the Eden, a fall is suggested as well. Here’s the first sentence of Chapter II: “To the people of the Pastures of Heaven the Battle farm was cursed, and to their children it was haunted.”