“I think this is the best-known story in the world because it’s everybody’s story. I think it is the symbol story of the human soul. I’m feeling my way now—don’t jump on me if I’m not clear. The greatest terror a child can have is that he is not loved, and rejection is the hell he fears.
“I think everyone in the world to a large or small extent has felt rejection. And with rejection comes anger, and with anger some kind of crime in revenge for rejection, and with the crime guilt—and there is the story of mankind.
“I think that if rejection could be amputated, the human would not be what he is. Maybe there would be fewer crazy people. I am sure in myself there would not be many jails.
“It is all there—the start, the beginning. One child, refused the love he craves, kicks the cat and hides his secret guilt; and another steals so that money will make him loved; and a third conquers the world—and always the guilt and revenge and more guilt. The human is the only guilty animal.
“Now wait! Therefore I think this old and terrible story is important because it is a chart of the soul—the secret, rejected, guilty soul.”
—John Steinbeck, East of Eden
By Common Consent, a Mormon Blog 
Nothing more to add.
The only thing I would add is, that Jesus showed us a very different way of handling rejection.
Cain asked, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Jesus answered, “yes”.
East of Eden was one of the transformative reads of my life. A great, powerful, fantasia of our moral and physical landscape. Timshel!
About a year ago I came across Arta Romney Ballif’s (sister to Prsident Marion G. Romney) attempt to capture Eve’s perspective on this episode. Her poem is called “Lamentation”. Apologies for the lengthy post but I found this profoundly moving and wanted to share it if people are not familiar with this:
Lamentation
by Arta Romney Ballif
And God said, “BE FRUITFUL, AND MULTIPLY –“
Multiply, multiply – echoes multiply
God said, “I WILL GREATLY MULTIPLY THEY SORROW – “
Thy sorrow, sorrow, sorrow –
I have gotten a man from the Lord
I have traded the fruit of the garden for fruit of my body
For a laughing bundle of humanity.
And now another one who looks like Adam
We shall call this one, “Abel.”
It is a lovely name“Abel.”
Cain, Abel, the world is yours.
God set the sun in the heaven to light your days
To warm the flocks, to kernel the grain
He illuminated your nights with stars
He made the trees and the fruit thereof yielding seed
He made every living thing, the wheat, the sheep, the cattle
For your enjoyment
And, behold, it is very good.
Adam? Adam
Where art thou?
Where are the boys?
The sky darkens with clouds.
Adam, is that you?
Where is Abel?
He is long caring for his flocks.
The sky is black and the rain hammers.
Are the ewes lambing
In this storm?
Why your troubled face, Adam?
Are you ill?
Why so pale, so agitated?
The wind will pass
The lambs will birth
With Abel’s help.
Dead?
What is dead?
Merciful God!
Hurry, bring warm water
I’ll bathe his wounds
Bring clean Clothes
Bring herbs.
I’ll heal him.
I am trying to understand.
You said, “Abel is dead.”
But I am skilled with herbs
Remember when he was seven
The fever? Remember how—
Herbs will not heal?
Dead?
And Cain? Where is Cain?
Listen to that thunder.
Cain cursed?
What has happened to him?
God said, “A fugitive and a vagabond?”
But God can’t do that.
They are my sons, too.
I gave them birth
In the valley of pain.
Adam, try to understand
In the valley of pain
I bore them
fugitive?
vagabond?
This is his home
This the soil he loved
Where he toiled for golden wheat
For tasseled corn.
To the hill country?
There are rocks in the hill country
Cain can’t work in the hill country
The nights are cold
Cold and lonely, and the wind gales.
Quick, we must find him
A basket of bread and his coat
I worry, thinking of him wandering
With no place to lay his head.
Cain cursed?
A wanderer, a roamer?
Who will bake his bread and mend his coat?
Abel, my son dead?
And Cain, my son, a fugitive
Two sons
Adam, we had two sons
Both – Oh, Adam –
multiply
sorrow
Dear God, Why?
Tell me again about the fruit
Why?
Please, tell me again
Why?
Not only is Steinbeck wildly right – he’s about a half-century ahead of his time. New clinical studies on childhood attachment and trauma have now essentially proven that what he’s saying here is correct. There would not be many jails.
The diary of Adam and Eve by mark twain. Another good read, funny but ultimately sad.
“But ‘Thou mayest’! Why, that makes a man great, that gives him stature with the gods . . .”
Timshel, FTW.