East of Eden

Chapter 16

John Steinbeck · Mountaineers 10th–12th

Teaching Companion Print Adapt for your student

Copywork

It rose out of the years complete with all its colors and its cries, its crowded feelings. He saw himself, a very little boy, so small that he had to reach high for his father’s hand. He felt the cobbles of Londonderry under his feet and the crush and gaiety of the one big city he had seen. A fair, it was, with puppet shows and stalls of produce and horses and sheep penned right in the street for sale or trade or auction, and other stalls of bright-colored knickknackery, desirable, and because his father was gay, almost possessable.

Some accident of eye shape and eye color, it is. But no, that’s not it. It’s a look and has no reference to shape or color. Well, why is a look evil then? Maybe such a look may have been sometime on a holy face. Now, stop this romancing and never let it trouble again—ever.

Read both passages aloud. The first is a small boy at a fair. The second is the same boy, grown gray, arguing with himself on a horse at night. In which passage does Samuel sound younger?

For the educator Two passages from the ride home: the memory as it first rises, and Samuel’s answer to it at the end of the ride. The first opens the memory, before the crowd turns and carries father and son to the square. Its first sentence piles up what returns, “all its colors and its cries,” and then adds a third item with no “and” before it, “its crowded feelings.” Its second sentence sets the boy before us with a phrase in apposition, “a very little boy,” and a “so small that” clause that measures him by his father’s hand. Its third gives what he felt, underfoot and all around. Its fourth is long and happy: it opens on the turn “A fair, it was,” runs through a market joined by “and” and “or,” and ends on the boy’s own wanting, “desirable,” then “almost possessable.” Gloss “gay” in its older sense, merry. Point out that the passage ends on things almost owned. At the pub, after the hanging, the father promises a stick with ribbons, a whistle like silver and the shiny box, and the almost possessable is handed over so the boy will “beg no more.” The second passage is Samuel’s argument with himself. The book gives his thoughts without quotation marks, and the student copies them that way. Each of its six short sentences changes direction: an explanation, a sentence that throws it out, a better account, a question, a “Maybe,” and an order to himself that ends on a dash and one word. Its first sentence uses the same turn as the fair, “it is” placed last; the narrator uses it again in the kitchen (“A cheerful brown, they were”), and it is the sound of Samuel’s Irish voice running through the Hamilton pages. Students copying practise apposition, a long sentence held together by “and” and “or,” and an argument laid out one short step at a time. For the talk prompt, most will first say the boy sounds younger. Let someone argue the other side: the boy’s sentences are the grown narrator’s, while “never let it trouble again—ever” is the kind of vow a boy makes. Let them argue it from the words; the written questions take up whether the vow was right.

Discussion

Narration Tell the chapter back, from Samuel riding home under the moon to the wagon pulling away two days later. If you could keep only one line from it, which would you keep?

The boy tells his father that the golden man looked right down at him. His father answers, “For that even more I thank God he’s gone.” Why does one look matter so much to the father? Character
Samuel rules out the shape and color of Cathy’s eyes. The trouble is “a look,” he decides. Then he wonders, “Maybe such a look may have been sometime on a holy face.” What could a holy face have in common with the golden man’s? Theme
On the ride home, Samuel studied Cathy’s face in his mind. At breakfast Liza asks, “Her hands, Samuel, her hands—what was she doing with her hands?” What can hands tell Liza that a face cannot? Character

Make a Connection Think of a story, or a time in your own life, when someone had a strong, uneasy feeling about a person they had just met and could not say why. What did they do with the feeling?

Vocabulary

possessable: A fair, it was, with puppet shows and stalls of produce and horses and sheep penned right in the street for sale or trade or auction, and other stalls of bright-colored knickknackery, desirable, and because his father was gay, almost possessable. Able to be owned or had: possess with -able added. At the fair the bright stalls are “desirable,” and because his father is merry, “almost possessable”: the boy measures what he may have by his father’s mood. At the pub after the hanging, the father promises a ribboned stick, a silver whistle and a shiny box, and the almost possessable is handed over to end the questions.
knickknackery: A fair, it was, with puppet shows and stalls of produce and horses and sheep penned right in the street for sale or trade or auction, and other stalls of bright-colored knickknackery, desirable, and because his father was gay, almost possessable. Knickknacks gathered together: small, cheap, pretty things more for show than for use. The -ery ending makes a crowd of them, as in finery or jewelry. To a small boy at a Londonderry fair the knickknackery is “desirable,” and the word carries a grown man’s smile at what a small boy wanted.
flouting: They indicated either an ignorance or a flouting of the niceties. Openly ignoring a rule, as if to show you do not care about it. Do not mix it up with flaunting, which is showing off. For Liza, rolled-up sleeves at the table mean you either do not know the rule or are flouting it; she allows no third, innocent reason.
offhand: Offhand I’d say I’m against it, Joe. Said without thinking it over; casual, on the spur of the moment. Samuel answers Joe, “Offhand I’d say I’m against it,” and within a few lines asks him to tell Liza that his father refused him. Whether that first “Offhand” is honest or already part of the game is worth asking: the word sounds careless and may be anything but.

Critical thinking

Liza warns Samuel that riches and idleness are “devil’s tools,” and that he has “not a very sturdy resistance.” Samuel laughs with pleasure. What in her warning delights him?
Samuel means to help Adam build his Eden, “to make a secret guilt-payment for his ugly thoughts.” The thoughts were about Cathy, but the help will go to Adam. Who does he owe, if anyone?
Samuel decides his dread about Cathy is “nonsense” and promises himself never to let it trouble him again. Was he right to distrust his own warning?