Where Star Wars Meets Steinbeck
By David Graham-Caso
My brother Kevin and I were identical twins, which meant that whether through nurture of nature (hint: it was both), we developed nearly identical personalities. Collaboration was inherent — my brain developed with the understanding that Kevin’s input and involvement would be automatic. The babbling, indecipherable language my parents observed as toddlers evolved into a subconscious running dialogue. We could have entire conversations with glances, talk each other down from a crisis with a deep breath, and tell jokes with a single expression. Even after he moved the other side of the world, the unique shorthand connection between us persisted and we could have entire conversations in mere moments.
This is the story of one of those moments, one of my favorite moments with my brother.
I was visiting Kevin in Berlin for the first time since he had moved across the world.
As we rode the train into the city to see some sites, Kevin nodded at the hat I was wearing, which featured a white rebel starbird insignia from Star Wars.
“Forgot to ask,” he said. “Did you watch the video I sent a few weeks ago?”
“The Filoni thing about the significance of the end of Phantom Menace? Yes! I can’t believe I haven’t told you my theory about it yet!”
A few weeks earlier, a video started making the rounds on nerd blogs and message boards across the internet. In it, Dave Filoni, the producer involved in three Star Wars television series, Clone Wars, Rebels and the Mandalorian, explains how the lightsaber fight between Darth Maul and Qui-Gon Jinn at the end of the first Star Wars prequel was really about family and central to the theme of fatherhood. It was a brilliant, moving, and exceptionally nerdy, explanation. Kevin and I both adored it, and I had a theory that expanded it even further I was eager to share.
“Shoot,” Kevin said, always happy to entertain my most dorky impulses.
“Okay, here goes. Let me know if I lose you… So we know that Star Wars is modern mythology, right?” I began.
“Sure,” he replied. “Lucas relied heavily on Joseph Campbell and the monomyth. Pretty straight interpretation of the heroes’ journey when you look at it,” Kevin added, instinctively showing off a little. He wasn’t an obsessive Star Wars fan, but he knew screenwriting and could recite parts of Joseph Cambell’s seminal look at the common themes in mythology throughout history.
“Exactly,” I said. It is what I love so much about sharing Star Wars with my six year old son — they are stories for kids that talk about big and important themes in understandable ways. “And we know that the two most prominent themes in the series are family and free will, right?”
“The Filoni video makes clear that the family themes are pretty on the nose — especially the fatherhood stuff. Vader even literally means ‘father’ in dutch — doesn’t it?”
“It does,” I confirmed.
“But free will?” he asked.
“And here’s the theory that connects Star Wars with Steinbeck,” I said proudly.
“Okay, now I’m intrigued,” he said. I knew he would be.
“I’ll skip to the end and then explain how I got there,” I warned.
“Sounds unnecessarily confusing, but go on,” he said, getting impatient with the prefaces.
“Remember the scene at the end of Return of the Jedi, when Vader asks Luke to take his helmet off, so he can look at him with his own eyes, just one time?”
“I do,” he said.
“Alright, my theory boils down to what Vader says in that scene basically being thematically consistent with Adam Trask, at the end of East of Eden, saying ‘Timshel.’”
“Wow,” he said. “I really underestimated how confusing and obscure that would be. Take me through it.”
We first read East of Eden when we were in the same advanced placement English class in senior year of high school. It was an especially moving experience for us because our mom, who was a teacher before she had passed away years earlier due to complications with breast cancer, had taken notes when teaching the book to her high school English classes in the margins. Even though she had been gone for three years by the time we read the book, by reading the book with her margin notes, it was like we each got to read it with her.
The epic novel by John Steinbeck followed the Trask family through generations of brothers playing out the Cain and Abel dynamic, where brothers compete and conflict, as Steinbeck explores the idea of free will and if we are doomed to repeat the mistakes of past generations, or if we can choose for ourselves if we want to be good, bad, or something in between. In East of Eden, this concept was explained by a character who, when discussing the Cain and Abel story from the Bible goes into a tale about how he became obsessed with researching the word “timshel” because of how different versions of the Bible contain different translations of the word.
The character explains that when Jehovah has asked Cain why he is angry after killing his brother. Jehovah says, “If thou doest well, shall thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.”
It was the “thou shalt” that stuck with the character because, he explained “it was a promise that Cain would conquer sin.”
But in the a different translation of the Bible, there was a difference in the passage. In the American Standard Version, it reads, “Do thou rule over him.”
“Now this is very different,” Steinbeck had his character say. “This is not a promise, it is an order. And I began to stew about it. I wondered what the original word of the original writer had been that these very different translations could be made.”
Steinbeck’s character goes on to find out that it is the Hebrew word “timshel” that has multiple meaning-changing translations, and that how that word is interpreted — either meaning “thou shalt,” “do thou” or “thou mayest” — makes a huge difference. The following passage has always been one of my favorites in all of literature:
“Don’t you see?” he cried. “The American Standard translation orders men to triumph over sin, and you can call sin ignorance. The King James translation makes a promise in ‘Thou shalt,’ meaning that men will surely triumph over sin. But the Hebrew word, the word timshel — ‘Thou mayest’ — that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world. That says the way is open. That throws it right back on a man. For if ‘Thou mayest’ — it is also true that ‘Thou mayest not.’ Don’t you see?”
“Yes, I see. I do see. But you do not believe this is divine law. Why do you feel its importance?”
“Ah!” said Lee. “I’ve wanted to tell you this for a long time. I even anticipated your questions and I am well prepared. Any writing which has influenced the thinking and the lives of innumerable people is important. Now, there are many millions in their sects and churches who feel the order, ‘Do thou,’ and throw their weight into obedience. And there are millions more who feel predestination in ‘Thou shalt.’ Nothing they may do can interfere with what will be. But ‘Thou mayest’! Why, that makes a man great, that gives him stature with the gods, for in his weakness and his filth and his murder of his brother he has still the great choice. He can choose his course and fight it through and win.” Lee’s voice was a chant of triumph.
In his dying word at the end of the novel, Adam Trask tells his surviving son “timshel” — reminding him that he has the power to choose if he wants to be good or not. That people aren’t born good or bad, that we have a choice.
I re-read the book at big moments in my life. My wife and I named one of our sons “Caleb” after one of the characters in the book. I had “timshel” tattooed on my left forearm right before Caleb was born because of its significance to my son, my mom and my brother, and because of the importance I have always attached the concept explained in that one important word of East of Eden. You could say it is an important story to me.
So when Dave Filoni talked about the significance of Star Wars, the hero’s journey that Luke goes on, and the themes of good and evil, and of fathers passing down lessons to their sons, it connected with East of Eden in my head. And when I thought more about Vader’s final line at the end of Return of the Jedi to Luke, “you were right about me… tell your sister… you were right…” it made me realize that he was telling Luke the same thing that Adam Trask was telling Cal — that people aren’t good or bad — that we have the choice. Luke spent Return of the Jedi telling his father that he still sensed good in him, and Vader spent the movie saying that he didn’t have a choice but to be evil. The revelation at the end was effectively George Lucas saying “timshel” to a generation of kids who were there because of the space wizards and laser swords. And I love Star Wars for exactly that reason.
But what I love even more is that there was a short-hand my brother and I enjoyed that allowed me to, instead of diving into the more than 4,700 words of context you just read, simply say to him “Vader’s last words were telling Luke that he was right about good still existing in him, that there is a choice.”
“Ah,” he responded with a nod and a small chuckle. “Timshel. Right.”
There weren’t many people in the world, I remember thinking at the time, who could bounce between Steinbeck and Star Wars with me.
The lady sitting within an earshot of us on the train looked very confused.
—
That was one of the last times I got to spend any real time with my brother before he died in October 2020. God, I miss him.
