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East of Eden
Mountaineers · 10th–12th
Adam says the light in his life came from Cathy, and Samuel asks, “And not out of you?” Where does the light Adam feels really come from?
The tension On the ride Adam says no one can know Cathy's “goodness” and that “A kind of light spread out from her”; at supper Samuel shivers at her eyes that “communicated nothing”, and after dark Cathy says “I am not going to stay here. As soon as I can I will go away”, and Adam answers, “Oh, nonsense.”
Adam rebuilds the old Sanchez place for the wife he adores, while the narrator, Lee and Samuel each show us something of Cathy that Adam does not see, up to the evening she tells him plainly that she will go.
The chapter has five sections. First, Adam settles on the old Sanchez place “like a contented cat”: carpenters from Salinas rebuild the house to last, a gardener lays out the garden, and Lee stocks the kitchen. Adam’s memory of Connecticut darkens. The narrator widens out to the whole valley, where men find happiness in the future “according to their present lack,” and Samuel is called haywire for wondering whether they will be happy when it comes; he remembers a rich cousin, loved by the most beautiful woman in the world, who shot himself. Adam is happy in the present too. Cathy, waiting in Bordoni’s spare house for the baby, is described as catlike as well: she waits for what she can get, does not mean to stay once “her trap opened,” and gives Adam proper answers. She asks whether her scar is darker; Adam says no, and the narrator says it was. She cannot read Lee. Second, in the dry summer Adam sends Lee to ask Samuel about wells. On the drive Lee drops his pidgin: he keeps it and the queue because pidgin is what people expect and will listen to, while Samuel is one of the rare people who see what is. Lee was born in Grass Valley, went to the University of California, and was a foreigner in China. Samuel admits his own jokes are expected of him. Lee defends a good servant’s life as a position of power, though a lonely one. Third, Samuel and Adam ride the land. Samuel walks it with a forked stick, which pulls down hard in two of three places, and says he does not believe in it save that it works. Adam jokes that he will make an Eden and plant no apples, then tells of his gray life, his father, the army, and the light that spread out from Cathy. Samuel asks, “And not out of you?”, describes a friend’s duty to spoil such happiness, and refuses it as “a false friend.” Fourth, at supper under an oak Samuel meets Cathy. Her eyes communicate nothing and he shivers; at his “Sometimes a silence tells the most” her eyes leap and the scar seems darker to him. Adam sees nothing strange. Two sentences of nonsense go unheard, and Samuel leaves early. In the shed he asks Lee whether something is wrong; Lee answers in pidgin, then asks whether Samuel needs a cook. Fifth, in the dark Adam talks of his plans. Cathy tells him she did not want to come, will not stay, and will go as soon as she can. He laughs, tells her she will get over it as he got over homesickness in the army, and looks up at the stars.
Before reading, ask the student how well a person can know someone they love; hold the answer. Read the first section aloud, the house and the valley’s talk of the future at an even pace, then Adam and Cathy slowly from “If Adam rested like a sleek fed cat” onward. Read the drive in the second section without stopping; Lee’s plain English is the heart of it. Read the third section through the wand, the Eden talk and Samuel’s refused duty, and stop at “Even at this distance she looks beautiful” to ask what Samuel has been told he will see. Read the supper and the shed, then the last section to the end, and bring back the opening answer.
Retell The student tells the chapter back from Adam on his land to Adam looking up at the stars. Look for the five sections in order: the house, the valley’s future and Cathy waiting; the drive with Lee; the ride with the wand, the Eden talk, the light and Samuel’s refused duty; the supper and the shed; and the talk under the tree. Look for Cathy’s plain words and Adam’s laugh at the end, and for no claim about where Cathy will go or what Lee knows. The line the student keeps should come with a reason.
Imitate the author After copying, the student writes two short speeches about something they value. The first follows Adam: one plain sentence about what the thing did, then five or six short sentences that each begin with “And,” climbing to a last one that says what changed in the speaker. The second follows Samuel: a sentence of narration that names the speaker’s tone, one long sentence of verbs in a row, a short sentence that turns the tone, and then three or four sentences that each begin with “I should,” each naming a different duty. Read both aloud and listen to what the repeated opening does to each voice.
Debate Take sides on the last written question. One side argues that the light comes out of Adam, and gathers Samuel’s “old friend,” Lee’s rule about expectation, the supper where only Samuel shivers, and “Oh, nonsense.” The other argues that Cathy brought it, and gathers Adam’s “or it would have come before,” his gray years with his father and in the army, and how much the light has changed him. Each side must answer the other’s strongest piece. Neither may say where or when Cathy will go, what Lee knows, or what the scar means, and neither may call Adam simply foolish.
Purpose Close on Adam’s “Oh, nonsense.” The chapter lets the narrator, Lee and Samuel each look at Cathy before she speaks plainly for herself, and it gives Adam a happiness that is real and has changed his life. Ask why Steinbeck sets so many watchers around one happy man, and why he lets the man laugh. Name the habit the chapter practises: telling apart what we see in a person from what we bring to them, without scorning the one who brings too much.
Easier Read aloud the paragraph on Cathy from “If Adam rested like a sleek fed cat” and the scar exchange that follows, the drive from Lee’s grin to “so you speak pidgin and shuffle.”, the ride from “Look, Samuel, I mean to make a garden of my land.” to “Even at this distance she looks beautiful,” the supper paragraph with “Sometimes a silence tells the most,” and the last section. Talk through the first, second and fourth discussion questions, then answer the last written question aloud before writing it.
On level Talk through all four discussion questions in order, then write all three 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 Lee’s rule, “You see what is, where most people see what they expect.” Test it on everyone who looks at Cathy in this chapter (Adam, Samuel, and the narrator who tells us what she intends) and weigh whether anyone sees her as she is. Meet the objection the narrator himself raises: “Very few people in the world could have known that Cathy did not want to be where she was,” so a failure to see her may say as much about her hiding as about anyone’s expectations.
1. Cathy asks if Adam thinks her scar is darker today. He says, “No, I don’t,” and the narrator answers, “But it was.” Why might Adam say no?Character
What it asks It asks the student to read one small exchange from both sides. In the first section Cathy tells Adam the scar on her forehead “isn’t going to go away, I’m afraid,” and asks, “Don’t you think it’s darker today?” Adam says, “No, I don’t.” The narrator answers him at once: “But it was. It looked like a huge thumbprint, even to whorls of wrinkled skin.” Adam puts his finger near, and she draws her head away. The student decides why Adam says no. It feeds the hinge: this is the first place the chapter shows the reader something about Cathy that Adam’s words deny, and whether he cannot see it or will not say it changes what kind of seeing his love is. The card must not make the scar a sign of anything; the chapter shows only that it darkens and that she calls it tender.
He does not see it. A few lines before, Adam has told her he never had “a very great desire to live” before he had her, and then he joggles her without noticing, and she tells him, “You just don’t think.” A man that full of what she has given him, who does not notice what his own hands do, does not look for a mark on her face, so his no is honest. The narrator has to say it for him.
No, you’re not. You just don’t think.
No, I don’t.
He sees it and is being kind. He leans close enough to put his finger near, so he is looking right at it. His wife is worried about her face, and he answers the worry rather than the question: “It will go away.” His no is a husband’s comfort, and “But it was” tells us only what he chose not to say.
He put his finger near, and she drew her head away.
It will go away. Just takes a little time, that’s all.
A strong answer A strong response gives Adam a reason and stands on the scar exchange. One reader says he does not see it: a man who never had much desire to live before he had her, and who has just joggled her without noticing (“You just don’t think”), is not looking for a mark on her face, and the narrator has to say it for him. Another says he sees it and is kind: he is close enough to put his finger near, and he answers her worry with “It will go away.” The best answers notice that either way the reader now knows something about Cathy’s face that Adam’s words deny, and carry that to the supper, where Samuel watches the same face.
2. Adam tells Samuel, “Remember my name is Adam. So far I’ve had no Eden, let alone been driven out.” Why would a happy man joke about being driven out?Tone
What it asks It asks the student to stop on the last words of a joke Adam makes himself. Riding home, Adam tells Samuel he means to make a garden of his land: “Remember my name is Adam. So far I’ve had no Eden, let alone been driven out.” He could have stopped at the garden; he goes on to name the end of the story too. Samuel chuckles and asks where the orchard will be, and Adam answers, “I won’t plant apples. That would be looking for accidents.” Samuel plays along: “What does Eve say to that? She has a say, you remember. And Eves delight in apples.” Adam answers, “Not this one,” his eyes shining, and “You don’t know this Eve. She’ll celebrate my choice.” The student decides why a happy man brings up the fall at all. It feeds the hinge: a few minutes later Adam says the light “lives around her.” If he half fears being driven out, he half knows that what lives around someone else can be lost; if he is wholly sure, he has put all of it in Eve. The card should not turn the apples into a symbol hunt; the point is that Adam makes the joke himself, laughing.
Because he is sure. Only a man with no fear in him can laugh at the fall. This is a happy man playing with his own name, and the joke is safe because he has no doubt of her: his eyes are shining when he answers Samuel’s Eve. The only danger he can name is a fruit tree, which is to say none.
Adam’s eyes were shining.
She’ll celebrate my choice.
Because the fear is there. A man who keeps out apples so as not to be “looking for accidents” believes a fall can come, and Adam has had one gray life already. When he looks at Cathy his joy is “close kin to grief,” the feeling of someone who could lose what he has. He names the fall so that he can laugh at it, and he puts the danger in the trees so that he never has to put it in Eve.
I won’t plant apples. That would be looking for accidents.
a pressure of ecstasy that was close kin to grief
A strong answer A strong response gives Adam a reason for “let alone been driven out” and stays with the ride home. One reader says he is sure: a happy man teases his own name, eyes shining, certain that this Eve will “celebrate my choice,” and only someone with no fear can laugh at the fall. Another says the fear is there: to keep out apples so as not to be “looking for accidents” is to believe a fall can come, and his joy at the sight of Cathy is already “close kin to grief.” The best answers notice where Adam puts the danger, in a tree and not in Eve, and carry that to the end of the chapter, where Eve has her say.
3. Lee tells Samuel, “You see what is, where most people see what they expect.” At supper Samuel feels “Something wrong,” but he cannot name it. How much does Samuel really see?Character
What it asks It asks the student to test Lee’s praise against the supper. On the drive Lee drops his pidgin for Samuel alone, because “You are one of the rare people who can separate your observation from your preconception. You see what is, where most people see what they expect.” Samuel answers that he has “not been so tested as you.” The test comes at the table. Cathy’s “wide-set eyes communicated nothing,” and Samuel shivers. At his “Sometimes a silence tells the most,” her eyes leap up and down again, it seems to him that the scar grows darker, and he feels a tension “somewhat like the feeling he had just before the water wand pulled down.” His mind repeats, “Something—something—can’t find what it is. Something wrong.” He talks to push the silence away, throws in two sentences of nonsense that no one hears, watches her face stay flat when Adam promises “the most beautiful place in the world,” has an impulse “to shock her out of her distance,” and leaves early. In the shed he asks Lee, “Is there something wrong here?”, takes the pidgin for an answer, and apologizes. Yet from the road he said, “Even at this distance she looks beautiful,” and at the table, “It’s a beautiful face.” The student judges how much he sees. It feeds the hinge: the man Lee calls a seer finds something wrong he cannot name, while Adam, in the same paragraph, finds nothing strange at all. The card must not say what Samuel later learns, what Lee knows or suspects, that the scar is a sign, or that the wand is magic or fraud.
A great deal, though his body sees before his mind does. He shivers twice, feels the pull he knows from the water wand, sees her eyes leap and her face not change, and goes to Lee to ask. Of the wand he said that maybe he knows where the water is and feels it in his skin, and needs a magic to bring up what he knows anyway. At supper he has the feeling and no wand to bring it up. Lee’s praise holds: Samuel sees what is, even before he can say it.
He felt a tenseness coming over him that was somewhat like the feeling he had just before the water wand pulled down, an awareness of something strange and strained.
Maybe I know where the water is, feel it in my skin.
Less than Lee claims. He cannot find what is wrong, and he cannot even recall what he said that made her start. He has called her face beautiful twice. When the moment comes to look further he backs away: he talks to push the silence off, bolts his supper, and when Lee answers in pidgin he agrees at once and apologizes. Seeing that something is wrong is not the same as seeing what is.
Samuel couldn’t recall what he had said that had made her give a small inward start.
Yes. I guess you’re right. Sure, you’re right. Sorry I asked you.
A strong answer A strong response judges how much Samuel sees and tests Lee’s praise against the supper. One reader says he sees a great deal, his body first: he shivers, feels the pull he knows from the wand, watches her face stay fixed, and goes to Lee to ask. Another says he sees less than Lee claims: he cannot find what is wrong or recall what made her start, he has called her face beautiful, and he takes Lee’s pidgin with an apology. The best answers tell sensing from naming, and set Samuel beside Adam, to whom nothing at the table is strange.
4. The narrator says Cathy gives Adam “proper answers,” because anything else would be wasted effort. At the end, under the tree, she tells him plainly that she will go. What makes it worth saying now?Inference
What it asks It asks the student to notice that Cathy breaks her own rule. In the first section the narrator says she “did not intend to live here after her sickness was over, after her trap opened,” but “to his questions she gave proper answers; to do otherwise would be waste motion, and dissipated energy, and foreign to a good cat.” All chapter she does: “It’s beautiful,” “That’s remarkable,” “That will be nice.” Then, in the dark, after Adam has talked of asking Samuel to run the place, of gum trees, an experimental farm, and riding over the whole place with her once the baby is born, she says, “Adam, I didn’t want to come here. I am not going to stay here. As soon as I can I will go away.” Adam laughs. The student says why she says it now. It feeds the hinge: her one plain act in the chapter is to tell the truth, and what Adam does with it is the hinge’s evidence. The card must not say when or where she will go, or what she will do; the chapter has her say only “As soon as I can.”
Because Adam has just pulled the trap tighter. He is not only building a house; he wants Samuel to run the place, means to send away for seeds, and plans for her to ride the whole place once the baby comes. Every plan says she will stay for good. Her proper answers served while the future was only his dream; now it is closing around her, and saying no is no longer wasted.
And once the baby’s born you can ride over the whole place with me.
She was trapped and she took the best possible way out.
Because the truth costs her nothing. The narrator says she learned young to win by using the momentum of the person against her, and she can guess how Adam will hear her: as homesick, someone to be soothed. She can tell him plainly because he will not believe it. The warning is given, and nothing changes.
It was easy to guide a man’s strength where it was impossible to resist him.
You’re like a child away from home for the first time.
A strong answer A strong response gives Cathy a reason and stands on the last section and the narrator’s paragraph about her. One reader says Adam’s plans have pulled the trap tighter (Samuel to run the place, the experimental farm, a ride over the whole place once the baby is born), so her proper answers no longer serve her. Another says the truth costs her nothing, because someone who wins by guiding a man’s own strength can guess that Adam will not believe it. The best answers notice that this is the one plain thing she says in the chapter, and hold it beside his laugh.
1. Adam says that toward his father he had “the kind of feeling you have in church, and not a little fear in it.” How different is his feeling for Cathy?
What it asks It asks the student to set two feelings Adam names on the ride home side by side. Samuel asks of his father, “You couldn’t love him?” Adam answers, “I had the kind of feeling you have in church, and not a little fear in it.” Samuel nods: “I know—and some men want that,” and adds, smiling ruefully, “I’ve always wanted the other.” A few minutes later Adam tells what Cathy did to his gray life: “A kind of light spread out from her,” and the list ends, “And I was not afraid any more.” Around these lines the chapter sets others. In the first section Cathy’s skin makes him “think of the angels on Sunday School cards.” On the ride he says, “I don’t think anyone can know her goodness,” and he wants the wells to “repay somehow for value received” and to make “a fitting place for her light to shine on.” The student builds a thesis, meets the strongest objection, and revises. It feeds the hinge: what kind of love this is bears on where its light comes from, but the card should leave the source of the light to the last question. It must not call Adam simply foolish; the stern father, the army and the gray years are the ground both feelings grow from.
Much the same feeling, with a new object. When he looks at Cathy he thinks of angels on Sunday School cards; he says no one can know her goodness, as one might say of something holy; and he means to repay “value received” by building a fitting place for her light, the way a congregation builds a church. He looks up at her as he looked up at his father, from below and from a distance.
a transparency to her skin that made him think of the angels on Sunday School cards
I don’t think anyone can know her goodness.
Different at the root. The church feeling had “not a little fear in it”; the light ends with “And I was not afraid any more.” His father was stern and above him; Cathy is someone he holds a chair for, teases and makes plans with. Samuel draws the line himself: some men want the church feeling, and he has always wanted the other. When Adam describes the light, Samuel knows it at once as “an old friend of mine.” Adam has found the other at last.
And I was not afraid any more.
I’ve always wanted the other.
A strong answer A strong response builds a thesis, meets the strongest objection, and revises. One thesis says the feeling is much the same with a new object: Adam thinks of Sunday School angels when he looks at Cathy, says no one can know her goodness, and means to build a fitting place for her light, as if paying a debt to something above him. The strongest objection is where his list ends, “And I was not afraid any more,” and Samuel, who has “always wanted the other,” knowing the light at once as an old friend. A good revision might hold that the fear has gone but the looking up remains, and ask how well a man can see someone he looks up to.
2. Samuel says a friend’s “duty” is to spread slime on Adam’s happiness. A friend once did that duty for Samuel. But he calls himself “a false friend” and leaves it alone. Was that kind or careless?
What it asks It asks the student to judge the choice at the center of the ride. Adam has just told Samuel of the light that spread out from Cathy, and that he wants the wells to make “a fitting place for her light to shine on.” Samuel swallows several times and speaks “with a dry voice out of a pinched-up throat.” He lays out a friend’s duty: to “spread slime on it thick enough to blot out its dangerous light,” to make Adam think of inconstancy, to give him Othello’s handkerchief, and so to “give you back your bad old life.” He speaks “satirically,” and then with vehemence. “It is the duty of a friend. I had a friend who did the duty once for me. But I’m a false friend.” He tells Adam to preserve it, and promises the wells. He has not yet met Cathy. At supper he feels “Something wrong,” has an impulse “to shock her out of her distance,” and still says nothing to Adam. The student builds a thesis, meets the strongest objection, and revises. It feeds the hinge: Samuel recognizes the light as “an old friend of mine,” and his choice turns on whose light he thinks it is. The card must not say what Samuel later learns or does.
Kind. The duty Samuel describes is not a warning about Cathy, whom he has not met; it is a cynic’s attack on any love, and he knows what it costs, because a friend once did it to him. To hand Adam back his gray life and “feel good about it” would be cruelty dressed as duty. Samuel chooses to protect the light instead.
If I did my duty well, I could give you back your bad old life and feel good about it, and welcome you back to the musty membership in the lodge.
It’s a lovely thing, preserve it, and glory in it.
Careless, or at least too easy. Samuel swallows several times before he answers, so something troubles him already, and by the end of supper he has shivered twice and felt that something is wrong. He rides home without a word to Adam. A friend who sees what is, as Lee says Samuel does, owes more than a joke and a promise of wells.
Samuel swallowed several times, and he spoke with a dry voice out of a pinched-up throat.
For just a moment Samuel had an impulse to do or say something to shock her out of her distance.
A strong answer A strong response builds a thesis, meets the strongest objection, and revises. One thesis says leaving it alone was kind: the duty Samuel mocks is an attack on any love, not a warning about Cathy, whom he has not met, and he knows its cost because a friend once did it to him. The strongest objection is his own body and the supper: he swallows before he speaks, his voice grows strong with vehemence, and by the end of the meal he has felt “Something wrong” and still rides home silent. A good revision might hold that the ride’s choice was kind and that the supper asks a harder question, one Samuel leaves unanswered.
3. Adam says the light in his life came from Cathy, and Samuel asks, “And not out of you?” Where does the light Adam feels really come from?
What it asks It asks the chapter’s whole question. On the ride home Adam tells Samuel what Cathy did to his gray life: “A kind of light spread out from her. And everything changed color.” The list climbs to “And I was not afraid any more.” Samuel recognizes it: “That’s an old friend of mine. It never dies but sometimes it moves away, or you do.” Adam: “All this coming out of a little hurt girl.” Samuel: “And not out of you?” Adam: “Oh, no, or it would have come before. No, Cathy brought it, and it lives around her.” Around that answer the chapter sets what others see: the narrator’s Cathy, who did not intend to stay “after her trap opened”; Lee’s rule, “You see what is, where most people see what they expect”; Samuel at supper, shivering at eyes that “communicated nothing,” while Adam looks raptly at her and “Whatever was strange was not strange to Adam”; and at the end, Cathy’s plain words and Adam’s “Oh, nonsense.” The student builds a thesis, meets the strongest objection, and revises. The card must not say when or where Cathy will go, what Lee knows, that the scar is a sign, or that the wand is magic or fraud; and it should not call Adam simply blind, when the chapter gives his gray life, his father and the army as the ground his love grows from.
Out of Adam. The light comes on in a man who had never had much desire to live, and it shines on everything, the color of the world and the goodness of people, while the woman at its center wants none of it. Samuel’s question points there, and so does Lee’s rule: Adam sees what he expects, and when Cathy speaks plainly he hears a homesick girl. The light is real; its source is a starved man’s power to love.
I never had energy or direction or—well, even a very great desire to live before I had you.
You see what is, where most people see what they expect.
From Cathy, or at least through her. Adam’s reply is not foolish: if the light were his, it “would have come before,” and it did not, through a stern father, an army and years of waiting. Something about her, even if only the picture of a hurt girl he could care for, woke what nothing else had. A light can come from a person without that person being what the light shows.
Oh, no, or it would have come before.
All this coming out of a little hurt girl.
A strong answer A strong response builds a thesis, meets the strongest objection, and revises. One thesis says the light comes out of Adam: it shines on everything while the woman at its center means to leave, Samuel knows it as an old friend found in any lover, and by Lee’s rule Adam sees what he expects, so that her plain words become “nonsense.” The strongest objection is Adam’s own answer, that it “would have come before,” and the gray life that shows it did not. A good revision might hold that the light was Adam’s to give but that it took Cathy, or his picture of her, to wake it, and weigh what that means for a man building a garden for her light to shine on.
His voice grew strong with vehemence.Strong, forceful feeling that pushes into the voice; passion pressed hard. It comes from the Latin vehemens, eager or violent. Samuel begins his speech “satirically,” mocking the duty he describes, but by the next sentence his voice has grown strong with vehemence, so the student has to ask how much of the mockery he means.
I should ask you to think of inconstancy and give you examples.Failing to stay the same, especially in love; changeableness or unfaithfulness. Constant means steady and true, and in- turns it around. It is the doubt a hard friend would raise about a beloved, and Samuel lists raising it as a duty he then refuses.
He glanced at Adam and saw that he was looking raptly at his wife.With complete, carried-away attention, as if seized by what one sees. Rapt comes from the Latin for seized or carried off, the root of rapture. At supper Samuel feels “something strange and strained”; Adam looks raptly at his wife, and “Whatever was strange was not strange to Adam.” The word holds both sides of his looking: it is total, and it is so full that nothing else gets in.
My wife is one of those paragons—a woman who does not talk very much.A model of perfection; someone held up as the best example of a quality. It came into English through French from the Italian paragone, a touchstone, the stone once used to test gold. At supper Adam answers Samuel’s question for his wife and calls her “one of those paragons” for her quiet: he turns her silence into a virtue, and “those” makes her one of a type he already has in mind. Samuel answers that “a silence tells the most,” and reads the same silence another way.