East of Eden

Chapter 18

John Steinbeck · Mountaineers 10th–12th

Teaching Companion Print Adapt for your student

Copywork

It was true that the sheriff represented armed force in the county, but in a community seething with individuals a harsh or stupid sheriff did not last long. There were water rights, boundary disputes, astray arguments, domestic relations, paternity matters—all to be settled without force of arms. Only when everything else failed did a good sheriff make an arrest. The best sheriff was not the best fighter but the best diplomat. And Monterey County had a good one. He had a brilliant gift for minding his own business.

The twins were awake, and they both looked blindly and earnestly up at the wind-moved leaves of the oak tree. A dry oak leaf came whirling down and landed in the basket. Adam leaned over and picked it out. He didn’t hear Samuel’s horse until it was almost upon him, but Lee had seen him coming. He brought a chair out and led Doxology away toward the shed. Samuel sat down quietly, and he didn’t trouble Adam by looking at him too much, and he didn’t trouble him by not looking at him.

The first passage ends, “He had a brilliant gift for minding his own business.” Read that line aloud twice: once as plain praise, and once with a dry smile. Which reading does the rest of the paragraph support?

For the educator Two passages: the narrator on a good sheriff, and the scene under the oak that closes the chapter. The first sentence of the sheriff passage grants one thing and turns on “but”: the sheriff stands for armed force, but a harsh one does not last. The second piles up a list of quarrels and closes it with a dash and a summing phrase, “all to be settled without force of arms.” The third turns the usual order around, “Only when everything else failed did a good sheriff make an arrest,” so the arrest comes last, where it belongs. The fourth is an antithesis, “not the best fighter but the best diplomat.” The fifth begins with “And” and runs seven words. The sixth can be read two ways. The oak passage’s first sentence holds a pair of adverbs, “blindly and earnestly,” and a compound adjective, “wind-moved.” Then come two short sentences of plain action with no comment: a dry leaf falls into the basket, and Adam picks it out. A sentence balanced on “but” sets what Adam does not hear against what Lee has seen. The last sentence has two halves that turn on one word, “not”: Samuel does not trouble Adam by looking at him too much, or by not looking at him. Students copying practise a list closed by a dash, an inverted sentence, an antithesis, a compound adjective, and a balanced sentence. For the talk prompt, some will hear plain praise: the paragraph has just shown that a good sheriff settles things without force, and this sheriff will settle Horace’s case without an arrest. Others will hear a dry joke: “minding his own business” is usually a rebuke, and “brilliant” sharpens it. Leave it open; the third discussion question and the last written question both turn on what this sheriff chooses not to touch. Set the two passages side by side if there is time: each shows a man who leaves something alone, and the harder level asks whether that is the same gift.

Discussion

Narration Tell the chapter back, from Horace riding out with Julius to Lee holding Samuel’s horse in the shed. Then choose the one sentence you think matters most. Why does the chapter need it?

Horace says people have been mad at him before, but never afraid of him. Why would Adam’s fear make him “feel mean” when their anger did not? Moral reasoning
Asked about scars, Adam first says, “Oh, God, no.” Only then does he admit the scar on her forehead. Why does the truth come second? Character
Just before he decides, the sheriff asks, “You said she had twins?” What changes for him when Horace says yes? Inference
In the shed, Samuel says, “There goes your bookstore, Lee,” and Lee answers, “maybe I didn’t want it much anyway.” Do you believe him? Character

Make a Connection Think of another story, or a time in history, when a few people agreed to keep a hard truth from a family. Who was that silence for?

Vocabulary

sardonic: The corners of his mouth were turned slightly up in a sardonic smile. Mocking in a dry, knowing way; amused by something dark, as if the person sees straight through it. Julius says nothing through most of the questioning; he stands “listening but uncommunicative.” When Adam says his wife is “away on a visit,” Julius’s mouth turns up “in a sardonic smile,” and Horace thinks, “He’s ahead of me.” The smile is all Julius shows. In the next room he admits that murder is “what jumped into my mind.” A sardonic smile mocks without a word, which makes it one more silence in a chapter full of them.
wind-moved: The twins were awake, and they both looked blindly and earnestly up at the wind-moved leaves of the oak tree. Moved by the wind. Steinbeck folds a whole clause, leaves that the wind was moving, into one word set before the noun, as he does earlier with Horace’s “sun-washed” eyes. A compound like this lets a sentence hold stillness and motion at once: the twins lie looking up while everything above them stirs. Out of that moving canopy a single dry leaf falls into their basket, and their father lifts it out.
doxology: He brought a chair out and led Doxology away toward the shed. A short hymn of praise to God, often sung at the close of a church service. The word joins two Greek roots, doxa, glory, and logos, word. Here it is the name of Samuel’s horse, and the narrator gives it without comment. Samuel rides a horse named for praise to the house of a man who wants nothing, not even the wells, and tells him to act out being alive. A reader may weigh what the name says about its rider.

Critical thinking

Suppose Adam had told Horace that Cathy shot him. Could the sheriff still have kept quiet about where she went?
Samuel tells Adam to “Act out being alive, like a play.” Adam has already played one part for Horace: a man who shot himself cleaning his gun. Is Samuel asking for the same kind of pretending?
The sheriff swears Horace to secrecy so the twin boys will never learn where their mother went. Is that silence a mercy to them or a wrong done to them?