East of Eden

Chapter 13

John Steinbeck · Mountaineers 10th–12th

Teaching Companion Print Adapt for your student

Copywork

Whatever Cathy may have been, she set off the glory in Adam. His spirit rose flying and released him from fear and bitterness and rancid memories. The glory lights up the world and changes it the way a star shell changes a battleground. Perhaps Adam did not see Cathy at all, so lighted was she by his eyes. Burned in his mind was an image of beauty and tenderness, a sweet and holy girl, precious beyond thinking, clean and loving, and that image was Cathy to her husband, and nothing Cathy did or said could warp Adam’s Cathy.

But he went through all the motions of carefulness. He drove and rode and walked over every foot of the land. He put a post-hole auger down through the subsoil to test and feel and smell the under earth. He inquired about the small wild plants of field and riverside and hill. In damp places he knelt down and examined the game tracks in the mud, mountain lion and deer, coyote and wild cat, skunk and raccoon, weasel and rabbit, all overlaid with the pattern of quail tracks.

Read both passages aloud. In the first, Adam sees Cathy by the light of his glory. In the second, he tests the land he means to buy. In which one does Adam see more?

For the educator Two passages, two ways of looking. The first is the fourth paragraph of the second section, where the glory reaches Adam. It opens on a clause that waves an objection aside (“Whatever Cathy may have been”), piles one feeling on another with “and” (“fear and bitterness and rancid memories”), makes a comparison from war (“the way a star shell changes a battleground”), and twice turns a sentence around so that what is seen comes after its verb: “so lighted was she by his eyes” and “Burned in his mind was an image”. The last sentence strings its praise in a series and ends on a possessive, “Adam’s Cathy”, which quietly makes two Cathys. The second passage comes from the Sanchez paragraphs, while Adam makes up his mind about the land. After one short sentence that turns on “But”, each sentence gives him a fresh verb of looking or handling, and three of them stack their parts with “and”: “drove and rode and walked”, “test and feel and smell”, “field and riverside and hill”. The last sentence names the animals in pairs and ends on one pattern laid over all the rest. Point out “motions” in the first sentence: the narrator does not say Adam was careful, only that he went through the motions of carefulness. Students copying them practise the inverted sentence, a series joined by “and”, a comparison, and a list set off after a comma. For the talk prompt, listen for students who choose the second passage: there Adam sees every track in the mud, while in the first he may not see his wife at all. Others will choose the first: the glory makes the whole world glow for him and gives him a home to want, and the testing is only motions. Let them argue it from the two passages.

Discussion

Narration Tell the chapter back, from the narrator’s “kind of glory” to Adam’s handshake with Bordoni. If you could keep only one line from it, which would you keep?

A star shell is a flare fired over a battlefield at night. The narrator says the glory changes the world “the way a star shell changes a battleground”. What would you see by that light? Author's choice
The narrator guesses that a man’s importance “can be measured by the quality and number of his glories.” After Adam’s train pulls out, the chapter stays one paragraph with Charles. Is that measure fair to Charles? Moral reasoning
The narrator says it is “very easy to understand” how the Trasks came to the Salinas Valley. A railroad poster sold it to Adam as better than heaven. How much of where he settles was his own choice? Theme
Dr. Tilson finds the knitting needle and threatens Cathy with the law. Then he promises not to tell her husband. Downstairs he tells Adam his standard joke. Who does that silence protect? Inference
Samuel watched Tom chain the sofa Liza loves best behind two horses and drag it off up the hill. What kept him from stopping Tom? Character

Make a Connection Think of a time when a new hope, like a move, a friendship or a plan, made everything look brighter. What did it show you, and what did it keep you from noticing?

Vocabulary

carefulness: But he went through all the motions of carefulness. The habit of taking care: going slowly, checking, guarding against mistakes. The narrator does not say Adam was careful; he says Adam went through “the motions of carefulness”, the outward steps of it. The word asks whether the care is real or a show the glory puts on while it has already chosen.
overlaid: In damp places he knelt down and examined the game tracks in the mud, mountain lion and deer, coyote and wild cat, skunk and raccoon, weasel and rabbit, all overlaid with the pattern of quail tracks. Covered with a layer of something else laid over the top, so that what is underneath shows through only in part. The hunters and the hunted are all there in the mud, and the small quail tracks lie over them like a pattern. It is the chapter’s habit in one word: a lighter pattern laid over darker tracks.
noncommittal: And he didn’t listen to her noncommittal answers. Not saying yes or no; giving an answer that promises nothing and shows no opinion. Asked again and again if she likes the ranch, Cathy gives answers like this, and Adam does not listen. The word puts the gap between them in one place: she is keeping herself back, and he hears agreement.
mulish: Don’t turn mulish. Stubborn in a sullen, dug-in way, like a mule that will not move. Dr. Tilson uses it for Cathy’s silence. He reads her as an obstinate girl to be scolded into speech, and minutes later as someone to pity; the word shows how quickly he names her, and how little either name may fit.
thistledown: Adam saw a big man, bearded like a patriarch, his graying hair stirring in the air like thistledown. The light, silky fluff on a thistle’s seeds, which drifts on the slightest breeze. Adam sees a big man with a patriarch’s beard and forge-blackened hands, and yet his hair floats like this. The comparison gives Samuel something light and wandering, fit for a man with a hundred plans a day.
brassbound: But she’s got brassbound opinions. Fixed and unbending, like a trunk with brass bands round its corners. Louis uses it twice for Liza Hamilton: “No bigger than a bird”, but not to be moved. Beside Samuel, all hope and a hundred plans, it names the other kind of mind in that house: one that holds its ground.

Critical thinking

Adam sees “a sweet and holy girl”. The narrator has called Cathy a monster. He says we understand angels and devils “since we invented them”. Who invented Cathy?
Samuel says he can make a world in his mind “as surely as God created this one.” Then he says, “But God saw this world. I’ll never see mine except—this way.” Could Adam say the same of his Cathy?
The narrator treasures the kind of glory that came to Adam, yet it keeps Adam from seeing his own wife. Is Adam’s glory a gift or a danger?