SOURCE: Etheridge, Chuck. “Raising Cain: Steinbeck's The Red Pony and the Reversal of Biblical Myth.” In The Betrayal of the Brotherhood in the Work of John Steinbeck: Cain Sign, edited by Michael J. Meyer, pp. 297-326. Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 2000.

In the following essay, Etheridge deems the Cain and Abel myth as central to the stories in The Red Pony.

John Steinbeck once handed his friend Jules Buck a Bible and said, “I'm giving you the source material for all stories” (Benson 710). Certainly, anyone with even a passing familiarity with his works would know that the Bible, particularly the Old Testament, is a dominant force firing Steinbeck's creative imagination. Especially integral to his work is the Cain and Abel myth, which is central to his whole literary career. Late in life he articulated his belief that this myth was central to the human condition; he wrote...