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East of Eden
Mountaineers · 10th–12th
The narrator speaks for old men who miss the past and for people shouting for a clean new century. Is he mocking these voices, or does he share their hope?
The tension The same voices that call the old days “the best time that ever sloshed over the world” also curse “this cheating, murderous century of riot and secret death,” and the shout to slam the door on it—“Let’s close it like a book and go on reading!”—gives way at once to the old refrain: “Oh, but strawberries will never taste so good again”.
Between scenes, the narrator stops at the year 1900 and lets a crowd of voices speak about the hundred years just ending: those who miss them, those who curse them, and those who swear the next will be clean.
The chapter steps out of the story. No Trask or Hamilton appears in it: there is only a narrator at “a great boundary that was called 1900” and the voices he lets speak. It opens on memory. What happened is “muddied by the way folks wanted it to be”, richer the farther back it goes, and old men who may not live to cross into the new century look toward it with distaste. Sweetness, virtue, manners and beauty are gone, they say; even childhood is not what it was, when the only worry was finding a good flat stone for a sling. The narrator answers that you cannot remember the feel of a pleasure or a pain, only that you had it. An old man forgets, and wants to forget, the feeling that once put a boy face down in the young wild oats, sobbing, and might say, and did, that a boy lying out in the grass will catch a cold. Then comes the first strawberry line, a single sentence on men settling into death like setting hens, and a turn: history was “secreted in the glands of a million historians”, and some say the cheating, murderous century must be got out of. The essay runs through it fast: a second war with the British that left a burned White House and ten thousand widows, the Mexican War as “a kind of painful picnic” that trained the generals of the war to come, the slavery quarrel in three short lines, the nation like a man bleeding into his own beard, the slow rise westward, boom and bust, and public thieves. “To hell with that rotten century!” The crowd vows to close it like a book, promises clean hands and a fair deck, and threatens to crucify any cheat head down over a privy. The chapter ends on the strawberry line again, changed.
Before reading, ask the student to name something an older person they know says was better when they were young: a food, a game, the way people behaved. Ask whether the student believes it, and hold the answer. Read the first two paragraphs aloud and stop at “Where did all the good stones go, and all simplicity?” to ask what the old voices say has been lost. Read on through the setting hens, and stop to ask what the narrator says a man can and cannot remember. Read the run of history, from “History was secreted” to “To hell with that rotten century!”, without stopping. Then have the student read the vow aloud the way the crowd would shout it, and read the last line after it. Come back to the opening answer only at the last written question.
Retell The student retells the chapter’s movement from the boundary of 1900 to the last strawberry line. Look for the voices in order: the old men’s lament, the narrator’s word on memory and the boy in the grass, the first strawberry line, the curse on the century, the run through its wars and thieves, the vow, and the strawberries again. Look too for a clear line between the voices the narrator lets speak and anything that sounds like his own, and for no claim about what the new century brings. The one line the student keeps should come with a reason.
Imitate the author After copying, the student writes two short paragraphs about one stretch of the past (a school, a town, an old house) in two voices. The first remembers it sweetly, in one long sentence that adds praise in a series after a dash and ends on “as though”. The second remembers it bitterly: open with a command, use one fragment, turn one sentence on “but”, and end with a sentence that saves one plain, hard fact for its last words.
Debate Take sides on the last written question. One side argues that the narrator mocks these voices, and gathers “muddied”, the best time that “sloshed over the world”, the old man worried about a cold, the “painful picnic”, and the crucifixion over a privy. The other argues that he shares their hope, and gathers the exact stone, the boy’s grief given back, the “we” and “our little nation” of the history, and the man bleeding into his own beard. Each side must answer the other’s strongest piece. Neither may say what the new century brings, or give the narrator one settled view as fact.
Purpose Close on the chapter’s first sentence: “You can see how this book has reached a great boundary that was called 1900.” For one chapter the story stops, and there are no characters, only voices. Ask why a novel would pause at the turn of a century to listen to how people remember and wish. Name the habit the chapter practises: hearing whose voice is speaking, and judging how much of it the narrator shares.
Easier Read aloud the second, third and fourth paragraphs (the stone, the boy in the grass, the first strawberry line), the run of history from “Think back” to “To hell with that rotten century!”, and the last two paragraphs. Talk through the first, fourth and fifth discussion questions, then answer the last written question aloud before writing it.
On level Talk through all five discussion questions in order, then write both written questions as a thesis, the strongest objection and a revised thesis, each with lines from the chapter.
Harder Ask for one argued essay on the book the crowd calls on. The chapter opens, “You can see how this book has reached a great boundary that was called 1900”, and the crowd shouts, “Let’s close it like a book and go on reading! New chapter, new life.” What does a new chapter let a reader leave behind? The essay should meet the objection that this very chapter does leave the story behind, and weigh what the strawberry line at the end keeps.
1. Someone remembers a good sling stone: “not round exactly but flattened and water-shaped”. Then the narrator says you can remember only that you had a pleasure. So how does that stone come back so clearly?Inference
What it asks It asks the student to test the narrator’s rule about memory against the stone that comes just before it. The second paragraph speaks in the voice of the lament: fly buttons, man’s freedom “boiling off”, childhood “no good any more—not the way it was.” Then one long sentence slows down on a single thing: “No worry then but how to find a good stone, not round exactly but flattened and water-shaped, to use in a sling pouch cut from a discarded shoe.” It even corrects itself on the way (“not round exactly but”). The next paragraph opens: “A man’s mind vagued up a little, for how can you remember the feel of pleasure or pain or choking emotion? You can remember only that you had them.” The student says how the stone survives so sharply if the rule holds. It feeds the hinge: if the stone sounds like the narrator’s own memory, he stands inside the longing he describes; if the rule holds, the stone is only the shape the old voices pour their sweetness into. The card must not say whose memory it is; the chapter names no one, and no character from the story appears in it.
The rule holds. What comes back is the stone’s shape, a thing, not the pleasure of hunting for it. The old voices keep the fact that they were happy and pin it to a stone, then ask where all the good stones went, as if simplicity had been carried off with them. What they lose is the other half, the feeling that put a boy face down in the wild oats.
You can remember only that you had them.
Where did all the good stones go, and all simplicity?
The stone breaks the rule. The sentence is too exact to be a bare fact: “not round exactly but” is someone feeling for the right stone again. Whoever remembers it this way keeps more than the fact of a pleasure, and the voice sounds close to the narrator’s own. His may be one of the minds that has “vagued up a little”.
not round exactly but flattened and water-shaped
A man’s mind vagued up a little
A strong answer A strong response tests the rule against the stone and stands on the second and third paragraphs. One reader says the rule holds: what comes back is a shape, a thing, and the old voices pin the bare fact of their happiness to it, then mourn the stones as if simplicity left with them. Another says the stone breaks the rule: “not round exactly but” is someone feeling for the right stone again, and that voice sounds close to the narrator’s. The best answers notice that either way the stone is remembered and the boy’s pain is not, and ask what that difference says about memory.
2. The narrator says an old man might grumble that the boy in the grass will catch a cold, “and did”. Who heard him say it?Inference
What it asks It asks the student to hear two small words. Having said that you can remember only that you had a pleasure or a pain, the narrator turns to an elder man who “forgets, and wants to, the acid emotion eating at the spleen so that a boy had to put his face flat down in the young wild oats and drum his fists against the ground and sob”. Then: “Such a man might say, and did,” and the old man asks what the boy is lying out there in the grass for: “He’ll catch a cold.” The words “and did” turn a guess about such men into something that happened, and someone was there to hear it. The student says who. It feeds the hinge: if the hearer was the boy, the narrator keeps the pain the old voices sweeten away; if it was a grown man, or the man who said it, the narrator stands inside the forgetting he describes. The card must not name the boy, the old man or the narrator; the chapter names no one, and no character from the story appears in it.
The boy heard it, grown up now and telling it. Only someone who lay in those oats could know what was eating at the spleen; the old man sees only a boy lying in the grass. The words “and did” are the boy remembering the grown-up who walked past his grief. If so, the narrator keeps the very pain the old men want to forget, and stands apart from their sweetness.
the acid emotion eating at the spleen so that a boy had to put his face flat down in the young wild oats
He’ll catch a cold.
A grown man heard it, or said it. The paragraph is about older men whose minds have gone vague, and “and did” sounds like a man owning up: he has been the one who looked at a crying boy and thought of colds. If so, the narrator is inside the forgetting he describes, and his care for the boy comes from the far side of it.
A man’s mind vagued up a little
Such a man might say, and did,
A strong answer A strong response names a hearer and stands on the third paragraph. One reader says the boy heard it: only someone who lay face down in the young wild oats could know what was eating at the spleen, so “and did” is the boy remembering the grown-up who walked past his grief, and the narrator keeps the pain the old men forget. Another says a grown man heard it, or said it: the paragraph is about minds that have “vagued up a little”, and “and did” sounds like an old man owning up. The best answers notice that the narrator knows both sides of that grass, the boy’s grief and the old man’s grumble, and weigh what that says about where he stands.
3. Read aloud the sentence that curses the century, the one that ends “scrabbling for public lands and damn well getting them by any means at all.” How do the speakers feel about those lands?Tone
What it asks It asks the student to hear the voice inside the curse. Just after the line that history “was secreted in the glands of a million historians”, the narrator hands the floor to others: “We must get out of this banged-up century, some said, out of this cheating, murderous century of riot and secret death, of scrabbling for public lands and damn well getting them by any means at all.” The list runs from cheating and murder to a phrase that sounds less like shame than like pride. The student says how the speakers feel about the lands. It feeds the hinge: the fault line says the same voices sweeten the past and curse it, and here a curse may carry a boast. The card must not say who these speakers are; the page says only “some said”.
Ashamed, or disgusted. The lands come last in a list of the century’s sins, after cheating, murder, riot and secret death, and “by any means at all” names the crime. The speakers want out of the century because of things like this.
out of this cheating, murderous century of riot and secret death
Proud, under the curse. The words “damn well getting them” are how a man brags; the speakers got the lands and sound pleased about it. The same pleasure in land comes back in the history, where the Mexican War’s first good thing is that the country nearly doubled. They want to leave the century’s shame behind and keep its winnings.
damn well getting them by any means at all
We got a lot of western land, damn near doubled our size
A strong answer A strong response hears the line and stands on the sentence. One reader hears shame: the lands come last in a list of cheating, murder, riot and secret death, and “by any means at all” names the crime. Another hears pride under the curse: “damn well getting them” is a brag, and the same pleasure in land returns among the Mexican War’s “good things”. The best answers notice that a voice cursing the century may still want what it won, and carry that into the vow to close the century like a book.
4. The slavery quarrel ends on “Who is it wants to take my property?”, and the next line is a man bleeding into his own beard. What does that picture say back to the man who asked?Moral reasoning
What it asks It asks the student to read a picture as a reply to an argument. After the Mexican War the essay says, “And then the arguments:”, and gives three bare lines with no speakers named: “Can you keep a slave?”, then “Well if you bought him in good faith, why not?”, then “Next they’ll be saying a man can’t have a horse. Who is it wants to take my property?” No one answers. The next line is “And there we were, like a man scratching at his own face and bleeding into his own beard.” After it: “Well, that was over and we got slowly up off the bloody ground and started westward.” The student says what the picture says back to the man who asked. It feeds the hinge: this stretch neither sweetens nor jokes, and the student can weigh whether it is the narrator speaking or one more voice. The card should let “the sad self-murder” and the bleeding beard stand as the essay’s own names for the war; it must not supply battles, generals or dates the page does not give.
A verdict. The quarrel ends on the last word of the man who calls a slave his property, and the picture answers him: the fight over that “property” was a nation tearing at its own face. A man scratching himself hurts no one but himself, so the whole country paid, not one side. The man who said “my” is now inside “we”, bleeding with everyone else.
Who is it wants to take my property?
And there we were, like a man scratching at his own face and bleeding into his own beard.
No answer at all, and that is the trouble. The picture shows what the quarrel cost, not who was right. “Can you keep a slave?” is never answered on the page. The essay gets up off the ground and heads west, as if the question were closed only because the war was over. That is the same wish the chapter keeps showing: to be done with what happened.
And then the arguments:
Well, that was over and we got slowly up off the bloody ground and started westward.
A strong answer A strong response says what the picture says back to the man who asked, and stands on the lines around it. One reader hears a verdict: the quarrel ends on “my property”, and the picture replies that the fight over it was a nation tearing at its own face, with the man who said “my” now inside “we”. Another hears no answer at all: the picture shows the cost and leaves “Can you keep a slave?” unanswered, and the essay simply gets up off the bloody ground and goes west. The best answers notice that this stretch has no joke in it, and ask whether that makes it the place where the narrator speaks most for himself.
5. Early on, strawberries “don’t taste as they used to”. The chapter ends, right after the vow of a clean new century, with strawberries that “will never taste so good again”. What did the vow change?Author's choice
What it asks It asks the student to hear one line come back changed. The fourth paragraph is a single line that begins “Oh, strawberries don’t taste as they used to”. Then the essay curses the century, runs through its wars and thieves, and the crowd vows to close it “like a book”: “There’s no rot on this clean new hundred years.” The same vow promises that any cheat who deals seconds will be crucified “head down over a privy.” The very next line is the last, and it begins “Oh, but strawberries will never taste so good again”. Two things are new: the word “but”, and a line that looks ahead (“will never”) where the first looked back (“used to”). The student says what the vow changed. It feeds the hinge: if the vow changed nothing, the narrator lets the longing outlast the shouting; if it turned the longing forward, the crowd is already making the century it cursed into the sweet old days. The card should keep the talk on the strawberry half of the refrain, and must not say what the new century brings; the essay stands at the boundary and looks back.
Nothing. The longing outlasts the vow. The crowd swears the new hundred years are clean and in the same breath promises a crucifixion over a privy, so the old century’s violence is still in its mouth. Then the old line comes straight back, with “but” to answer the promise of “a fair thing ahead”. “Never” is harder than “don’t”: the shouting has made the loss feel final, not cured it.
It’s a fair thing ahead.
Oh, but strawberries will never taste so good again
It turned the longing around. The first line looks back: strawberries are worse than they “used to” be. The last line looks ahead from the boundary: they “will never” be this good again. The century the crowd has just cursed is already becoming the sweet old time, the way the old men’s century did for them. The vow to close the book is where the next lament begins.
Oh, strawberries don’t taste as they used to
more rich and meaningful the farther back it was
A strong answer A strong response sets the two strawberry lines side by side and says what the vow did between them. One reader says it changed nothing: the crowd’s clean century already carries a crucifixion over a privy, and the old longing comes straight back, with “but” to answer “a fair thing ahead” and “never” to make the loss final. Another says it turned the longing around: “used to” looks back, “never” looks ahead from the boundary, so the century just cursed is already becoming the sweet old time, as the opening says the past grows “more rich and meaningful the farther back it was.” The best answers notice that the chapter ends on longing, not on the vow, and carry that into the question of where the narrator stands.
1. Just after saying history “was secreted in the glands of a million historians”, the chapter tells a hundred years of history itself. Does its own telling come from the glands too?
What it asks It asks the student to turn the chapter’s own line about history on the history the chapter tells. The line stands alone, between the setting hens and the curse on the century: “History was secreted in the glands of a million historians.” A gland gives out sweat and tears; on this view history is something people ooze from feeling, not something they find. Then comes a hundred years in a rush: a little nation “too big for its britches”, a war with the British that leaves “a burned White House and ten thousand widows on the public pension list”, the Mexican War as “a kind of painful picnic” that trained generals to make the next war “properly horrible”, the slavery quarrel and the bleeding beard, boom and bust, and thieves who “picked the pockets of everyone who had a pocket.” The student builds a thesis on whether that telling is one more secretion, meets the strongest objection, and revises. It feeds the hinge: if the chapter’s own history is shaped by feeling, the narrator stands inside the voices he describes. The card must not settle whose voice tells the history; the page moves from “some said” to “we” without saying who “we” is. It must not add events the page does not name.
Yes. The telling is all feeling. A war is a picnic, a country is too big for its britches, the generals learn to make war properly horrible, and the thieves pick every pocket. It picks out the century’s worst and jokes about it, the way the people who want out of this banged-up century would. It is history sweated out by anger, as the old men’s sweetness was sweated out by longing.
Then the soldiers went to Mexico and it was a kind of painful picnic.
We must get out of this banged-up century, some said
No. This telling keeps what the glands leave out. Where the old voices kept good stones and good manners, it keeps a burned White House, ten thousand widows, a man bleeding into his own beard, and the bloody ground. The jokes are how it bears the facts, not how it changes them. The line about glands is a warning, and the history after it tries to do better.
What we had was a burned White House and ten thousand widows on the public pension list.
Well, that was over and we got slowly up off the bloody ground and started westward.
A strong answer A strong response builds a thesis, meets the strongest objection, and revises. One thesis says the telling comes from the glands too: it turns a war into a picnic and a nation into something too big for its britches, and it picks out the century’s worst the way the people who hate it would, so it is history sweated out by anger as the old men’s was sweated out by longing. The strongest objection is that it keeps exactly what the glands leave out: a burned White House, ten thousand widows, a man bleeding into his own beard, the bloody ground. A good revision might hold that this history comes from feeling and lets the reader see that it does, which may be the most any telling can do. The best answers carry that into the last question, where the narrator’s own stance is weighed.
2. The narrator speaks for old men who miss the past and for people shouting for a clean new century. Is he mocking these voices, or does he share their hope?
What it asks It asks the chapter’s whole question. The narrator lets the voices of 1900 speak, often without marking which line is his. He opens by saying that what happened was “muddied by the way folks wanted it to be”, then lets the old days slosh over the world, “sweet and simple”, and lets the old voices mourn manners, beauty and good stones. He says you can remember only that you had a pleasure or a pain, and gives back the boy face down in the wild oats whom the old man would rather forget. Then a crowd curses the century, runs through its wars in jokes and a bleeding beard, and vows to close it “like a book” and keep the next one clean, with a crucifixion for any cheat. The last word goes to the refrain: “Oh, but strawberries will never taste so good again”. The student builds a thesis, meets the strongest objection, and revises. The card must not give the narrator one settled opinion as fact; he lets several voices speak. It must not say what the new century brings, or bring in the Trasks or the Hamiltons, who do not appear.
Mocking. The narrator stands back and lets the voices give themselves away. Memory is muddied by wishing, the best time ever “sloshed” over the world, the old man worries about a cold, a war is a picnic, and the clean new century arrives with a crucifixion over a privy. The refrain comes back at the end to show the vow changed nothing.
what had happened was all muddied by the way folks wanted it to be
In the books of some memories it was the best time that ever sloshed over the world
Sharing. The voices are too close to his own to be only mocked. He gives back the boy’s grief with care, talks of “our little nation” and says “we” through the whole history, and pictures the war as one man bleeding into his own beard. The crowd’s hope for an honest deal is the hope of someone who has lived through the century. He laughs because he belongs.
Think back, recall our little nation fringing the oceans, torn with complexities, too big for its britches.
And there we were, like a man scratching at his own face and bleeding into his own beard.
A strong answer A strong response builds a thesis, meets the strongest objection, and revises. One thesis says he mocks: he calls memory muddied, lets the old days slosh over the world, turns a war into a picnic, lets the crowd’s clean century arrive with a crucifixion over a privy, and hands the last word to the strawberries. The strongest objection is how close he stands to the voices: he gives back the boy’s grief, speaks of “our little nation”, says “we” through the whole history, and pictures the war as one man bleeding into his own beard. A good revision might hold that he mocks the voices because he shares them, laughing at a longing he cannot get free of. The best answers stay with the page and do not give the narrator one settled view.
Another hundred years were ground up and churned, and what had happened was all muddied by the way folks wanted it to be—more rich and meaningful the farther back it was.Made cloudy and hard to see through, the way stirring a creek bed clouds clear water; from mud, used here of the past. The narrator does not say the past was lied about, only that wanting got into it, as silt gets into water, until no one can see the bottom. It is his first word on memory, and it puts every voice that follows under a question.
Think back, recall our little nation fringing the oceans, torn with complexities, too big for its britches.An old, homely word for trousers. To be “too big for its britches” is to act grander than one is, the way a boy is scolded for showing off. Said of a whole young country, the saying is half fond and half sharp: the nation is pictured as a cocky boy, and the next lines show what its swagger cost.
We got a lot of western land, damn near doubled our size, and besides that it was a training ground for generals, so that when the sad self-murder settled on us the leaders knew the techniques for making it properly horrible.The killing of oneself; an old word for suicide. Steinbeck uses it for a war a nation fought against itself. The word treats the country as one body, so the war’s dead are its own; it does not divide the country into sides. The picture that follows, a man “bleeding into his own beard”, carries the same idea.