Does EL automatically convert/cast the type? How does ${a.name} actually work?

Question

I have a variable declared as type Object a which actually refers an instance of type A.

In EL, I can directly use the following expression

Answer 1

It's because name is a property of the object a, and probably the object is also a JavaBean (not to be confused with Enterprise JavaBean).

See here for Expression Language Documentation and here for a short tutorial.