East of Eden

Chapter 17

John Steinbeck · Mountaineers 10th–12th

Teaching Companion Print Adapt for your student

Copywork

She sat in her chair under the oak tree, her hands clasped each to each in love and shelter. She grew very big—abnormally big, even at a time when women gloried in big babies and counted extra pounds with pride. She was misshapen; her belly, tight and heavy and distended, made it impossible for her to stand without supporting herself with her hands. But the great lump was local. Shoulders, neck, arms, hands, face, were unaffected, slender and girlish.

The words struck into her understanding like lead shot dropping in water. She made a great effort. And it gave him a shivering to see her face change, the steel leave her eyes, the lips thicken from line to bow, and the corners turn up. He noticed a movement of her hands, the fists unclench and the fingers turn pinkly upward. Her face became young and innocent and bravely hurt. It was like one magic-lantern slide taking the place of another.

Read both passages aloud. Both show Cathy’s hands. In the first, they are clasped “in love and shelter.” Whose love is that?

For the educator Two passages that show Cathy only from outside: her body through the summer, and her face in the birth room. The first comes right after the narrator says, “I’ve built the image in my mind of Cathy.” Its first sentence ends on a pair, “in love and shelter”; “each to each” is an old turn for each hand clasped to the other. Its second sentence says a word and then sharpens it after a dash, “very big—abnormally big,” and sets her against “a time when women gloried in big babies.” Its third turns on a semicolon and strings three adjectives together with “and” between each, “tight and heavy and distended.” Its fourth is short and plain: “But the great lump was local.” Its fifth lists five parts of the body with no “and” between them, then adds three adjectives after the verb, “unaffected, slender and girlish.” The second passage opens on a simile, “like lead shot dropping in water,” and then a sentence of five words. Its third sentence hangs a change and its three parts on one verb, “see”: “to see her face change, the steel leave her eyes, the lips thicken from line to bow, and the corners turn up.” Its fourth does the same for her hands. Its last two give the result plainly and then a second simile (gloss the magic lantern from the vocabulary). Students copying practise a dash that sharpens a word, a semicolon, a list with no “and,” and a series of changes hung on one verb. For the talk prompt, most will say the love is Cathy’s, for the baby she carries. Let someone point out that the narrator has just said he built this image, and that after the birth she says of the twins, “I don’t want them.” Leave it open; the second discussion question sets the face in the second passage beside a third.

Discussion

Narration Tell the chapter back, from the narrator bent over “the small print of her” to the twins crying for their dinner. If you could keep only one line from it, which would you keep?

Samuel pictures the buried star falling into an inland sea long ago. The water explodes, and dead fish float up for the birds to eat. He calls it “a lonely, lovely thing to think about.” How can a thing that kills be lovely? Theme
After the birth, Cathy’s face is neither hateful nor sweet. It is “stony, expressionless.” Is that face closer to the real Cathy than the other two? Character
Liza thought Lee was a heathen, and he turns out to be “A Presbyterian, and well up.” She finds “no real fault” in Cathy, and still she does not like her. Should her mistake about Lee make you trust her less about Cathy, or more? Inference
The chapter could end as Cathy’s steps fade on the dry oak leaves. Instead it turns to the twins, crying for their dinner, and adds one line: “He had forgotten to feed them.” Why end on Adam? Author's choice

Make a Connection Think of a story, a film, or a time in history when people called someone a monster. What would you need to know before you agreed with them?

Vocabulary

gloried: She grew very big—abnormally big, even at a time when women gloried in big babies and counted extra pounds with pride. Took great pride and open joy in something; to glory in a thing is to delight in it where others can see. The narrator says the women of that day “gloried in big babies and counted extra pounds with pride,” and Cathy is bigger even than that, “abnormally big.” The word measures her against a pride other women showed. The passage never says whether she shared it; it gives only her hands, clasped “in love and shelter.”
magic-lantern: It was like one magic-lantern slide taking the place of another. An early kind of projector: a lamp behind a picture painted on glass threw the picture onto a wall or screen in a darkened room, and the showman slid one picture out and the next one in. Samuel watches Cathy’s face go from hatred to “young and innocent and bravely hurt,” and the narrator says it was “like one magic-lantern slide taking the place of another.” The simile makes the change sudden and whole, with no blending between the two faces, and leaves open whether either one is more than a picture.
assay: Tom, I’m going to make a guess and then I’m going to get an assay. A test of a metal or ore to find out what is in it and how much. Samuel guesses that the drill has struck a meteorite, with nickel and silver in it, and will not trust the guess until it is tested: “I’m going to make a guess and then I’m going to get an assay.” He tells Tom, “we can prove it by assay.” For the buried star there is a test. For the woman in the bedroom there is none, and that evening Samuel sends for Liza’s clear eyes instead.
unbeknownst: Unbeknownst to herself, she’s put a spell on her husband. Without someone knowing. “Unbeknownst to herself” means without her own knowledge. It is built on an old verb, beknow, to know, and has a homely, old-fashioned sound in Liza’s mouth. Liza is sure Cathy has bewitched Adam without meaning to: “Unbeknownst to herself, she’s put a spell on her husband.” On the last evening Cathy tells Adam, “Any woman can do anything to you,” and the reader may weigh the two claims side by side.

Critical thinking

All summer, Cathy’s body makes “no physical planning to feed the newborn.” After the birth, she will not even look at her sons. Is her refusal something she chose?
On the day of the birth, Cathy tells Samuel she does not want her sons. He says she will change. She tells Adam she does not want him. He says he will stay. When she leaves, she tells Adam, “You didn’t listen.” Is she right?
The narrator says we cannot know what Cathy wanted or why she did what she did. After the bite, the refused sons and the shot, is it still fair to call her a monster?