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East of Eden
Mountaineers · 10th–12th
When the wine breaks down Kate's “barriers and defenses”, Faye sees a woman she does not know. Is that sneering woman the real Kate, or is the careful, loving daughter just as real?
The tension Before the second glass Kate lays her cheek on Faye's knee and says “I think I’ve never been so happy before”; after it, “Her voice became chill and her mouth was thin”, and she tells Faye “I’m going to show you how to run a whorehouse”, then by morning soothes her with “It’s all right, Mother. It’s all right. You had a nightmare.”
How Kate’s careful disguise wins Faye’s trust and fortune, slips for one drunken hour, and is rebuilt before anyone else wakes.
The chapter has three sections. First, on a pleasant afternoon in Faye’s room, the blind piano player Cotton Eye asks for the night off; Kate knows he has been smoking opium, and Faye believes he has stopped. Kate warns Faye that someone will steal the roof if nobody watches for her. Faye, in tears, says Kate is like her own daughter and asks her to stop working upstairs and manage the house instead. Kate refuses, says she has to have the money and has five regulars tonight, and calls Faye “Mother” for the first time. Faye cries and asks Kate to tap on her door after closing for a surprise. Alone in the hall, Kate stretches and smiles. Second, the Woodmen of the World never come: Clarence Monteith has a heart attack at their meeting and dies on the way home. The girls sit in a silent parlor. When Grace wants to ask Faye to close early, Kate stops her, says Faye is not well and fainted at tea, and asks them not to tell Faye. After closing Kate dresses like a little girl and brings Faye a gold watch engraved “To C. with all my heart from A.,” which she says was her mother’s. Faye’s room is decorated like a tent, with lanterns, a cake and champagne. Faye’s present is a will leaving everything to Kate; she says she has over sixty thousand dollars. When Kate worries that kin will break the will, Faye says she has none and does not use the name she was born with. Kate lays her cheek on Faye’s knee and says she has never been so happy. Faye insists on the wine. After the second glass Kate changes. She mocks Faye, refuses to sell the house and go to Europe, makes her drink from the bottle, boasts of what she does to her regulars with razors and whips, and says she will run the house that way. When Faye screams, Kate covers her mouth. Faye orders her out of the house; Kate makes her drink half a glass of paregoric, and Faye falls asleep. Third, Kate panics, drinks mustard and water to bring up the wine, and goes over the evening. At dawn she puts Faye to bed. Then, again and again, she brings Faye near waking with ammonia on a handkerchief and the blunt end of an ivory crochet hook pressed into tender places, telling her she has had a bad dream when she half wakes, and after that stopping each time just before she wakes fully. She dresses for bed, opens the door to the hall and pours cold water in Faye’s ear. Faye screams; Ethel, the cook and the girls come. Kate sends them to bed and nurses Faye all morning. Faye, afraid to sleep, says the dreams were not like her dreams. Kate promises to keep them away and sits by the bed, studying her.
This chapter is hard to sit through, and its worst pages are written plainly: a drunken boast about razors and whips, and a dawn of quiet torment. Read them plainly too, once, and move on; the questions ask what the cruelty is for, not what it looks like. Read the first section aloud in two voices if you can, and stop at the hall. Read that paragraph twice: it is the only time in the section that no one is watching Kate. Cotton Eye’s “gong” is an opium pipe. Do not skip the parlor: a story is planted there. Grace uses a slur for Chinese men (“There won’t even be a Chink in tonight”); name it plainly as a slur when it comes up. Read the party straight through from the decorated room to the paregoric, and read the first copywork passage slowly, twice. In the third section the narrator lists the ammonia and the crochet hook in one paragraph; read it once and do not return to it. Stop at “studying her.” Leave the question of which Kate is real for the last written question.
Retell The student tells the chapter back from the setting sun on Frémont’s Peak to Kate studying Faye by the bed. Look for the three sections in order: the afternoon of the word “Mother,” the empty night and the party, and the dawn. Look for the parlor story placed before the party, the will before the wine, and the open door before the scream. Look for no claim about what Kate means to do to Faye, who “A.” is, or what “the other time” was. Then ask which sentence the student would keep, and why.
Imitate the author After copying, the student writes six sentences of their own about someone losing a control they had worked hard to keep, such as a temper, a secret or a fear, moving from the inside out. It needs a first sentence of two clauses joined by a comma, the second widening the first; a sentence that states a paradox plainly; a long sentence whose list is joined by a repeated “and” and ends on a short clause; a sentence with a pair of words that begin alike; and two short sentences that carry the change out to the face. Then six more sentences on the same person, later, putting things back in order: a three-word opening, a long sentence of four actions joined by “and,” a sentence balanced on “but,” a one-line verdict on how the person moves, and two plain sentences. Read both aloud beside Steinbeck’s and ask how the sentences change when the control comes back.
Debate Take sides on the last written question. One side argues that the sneering woman is the real Kate, and gathers the narrator’s “carefully built barriers and defenses and deceptions,” the “learned to cover and control,” the faint planted while sober, and the dawn’s careful cruelty. The other argues that the careful daughter is just as real, and gathers the price she pays to keep it (the mustard, the sleepless dawn), “I think I’ve never been so happy before,” her fear before the wine, and the tireless nursing the house sees. Each side must answer the other’s strongest piece. Neither may say what Kate will do to Faye, who “A.” is, or what “the other time” was.
Purpose Close on the chapter’s design. Steinbeck frames the night with Frémont’s Peak: lit “pinkly” in the afternoon, “black against the sky” at dawn. Between the two he shows Kate winning everything she has worked toward, losing her disguise for one hour, and rebuilding it before anyone wakes. Faye sees both Kates and is taught to call one of them a dream; the girls see only the nurse; the reader alone sees all of it. Ask what the chapter gains by ending on Kate awake and watching rather than on Faye asleep. Name the habit the chapter practices: weighing the self a person performs against the self that slips out, and asking which one does the work.
Easier Read aloud Kate’s warning about the roof, her refusal and the first “Mother,” the parlor talk from Grace’s “I’m going to ask Faye” to “fainted dead away,” the will and Faye’s “Do you think you are the only one with secrets?”, the first copywork passage, and the last scene from the open door to “studying her.” Talk through the five discussion questions, then answer the last written question aloud before writing it.
On level Talk through all five 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 the word “Mother.” Kate first says it inside a refusal, “I have to, Mother,” and “The word did it.” Drunk, she sets it between dashes: “Mother—dear Mother.” At dawn it is “It’s all right, Mother,” and in the morning “Poor little Mother!” Weigh what the word does each time, and whether it ever means the same thing twice. Meet the strongest objection: that a word used as a tool cannot also carry feeling.
1. In the afternoon Kate warns Faye, “Someday if you don’t watch, or I don’t watch for you, someone will steal the roof.” Look at Faye by morning. Has anyone stolen from her?Character
What it asks It asks the student to hold the chapter’s first warning up against its end. Cotton Eye, the blind piano player, asks for the night off. Kate tells him to “Let the gong alone” (the gong is an opium pipe), and when he says “I ain’t been smoking,” she answers, “You’ve been smoking.” Faye says, “He told me he’d stopped,” and pities him. Then Kate stands in front of her and says, “You’re so sweet,” and then, “Someday if you don’t watch, or I don’t watch for you, someone will steal the roof.” Faye asks, “Who’d want to steal from me?” Within minutes she calls Kate “like my own daughter” and offers her the house to manage. By the night’s end she has given her a will. Drunk, Faye wants to sell the house and go to Europe, and Kate says “No.” Faye answers, “It’s my house. I can sell it,” and Kate asks, “Did you forget I’m your daughter?” By morning Faye has been nursed and petted, and she is afraid to sleep. The student decides whether anyone has stolen from Faye by the end of the chapter, and what. It feeds the hinge: the warning is one of the truest things the careful daughter says, and the hinge asks whether that daughter is as real as the woman the wine lets out. The card must not say what Kate plans for Faye or what happens to Faye after the chapter ends. It must not make Faye a joke for trusting.
Yes: the roof itself. In the afternoon the house is Faye’s, and she wants Kate to run it for her. By midnight she cannot sell it. When she says she can, Kate says no and claims a daughter’s right, then tells her how “this whole house is going to be” run. The thing Kate warned about is gone in one night, and the one who said she would watch is the one who took it.
It’s my house. I can sell it.
Did you forget I’m your daughter?
No. Nothing in the chapter is stolen; all of it is given. Faye offers the house to manage, calls Kate her daughter, and makes a will with the cook as witness. Her question turns out right in a way she did not mean. No one needs to steal from a woman who gives everything away.
You could be my daughter. You could manage the house.
All my worldly goods without exception to Kate Albey because I regard her as my daughter.
A strong answer A strong response decides what, if anything, Faye has lost by morning, and whether it was taken or given. One reader says the roof itself is gone: by midnight Faye cannot sell her own house, and when she says “It’s my house,” Kate answers, “Did you forget I’m your daughter?” Another says nothing is stolen, because everything Kate holds Faye handed her: the house to manage, the name, the will. The best answers notice who gave the warning, keep Faye’s trust in view as warmth, and claim nothing past the chapter’s last line.
2. Late that night Kate tells the girls that Faye “fainted dead away” at tea that afternoon. We were in Faye’s room that afternoon, and nobody fainted. When did Kate make up that story?Inference
What it asks It asks the student to catch a lie the chapter never labels, and to judge when it was made. The Woodmen of the World never come, because Clarence Monteith has had a heart attack at their meeting and died on the way home. The girls sit yawning in a silent parlor. Ethel says, “cat’s got Kate’s tongue,” and Kate starts: “Oh! I guess I was thinking of something.” Grace says, “Let’s ask Faye if we can’t lock up,” and “I’m going to ask Faye.” Then “Kate’s voice cut in on her”: “Let Faye alone. She’s not well.” Kate adds, “Maybe that’s what I was thinking about,” asks the girls never to let Faye know she told them, and says, “I was having tea with her late this afternoon and she fainted dead away.” The afternoon scene in Faye’s room shows no tea and no faint. Ethel helps without knowing it: “She’s got a kind of flush. I noticed it.” The student decides when Kate made up the story: earlier, while she sat silent, or on the spot, when Grace said she would ask Faye. It feeds the hinge: the careful daughter is a builder of stories other people believe, and this is the first one the chapter watches her plant, before any wine. The card must not say what the story is preparing for; the chapter never says. It must not say the girls suspect anything.
Ready. Kate was silent all evening, and she admits she was “thinking of something.” The story has the details of a plan: a tea, a faint, a wish for a doctor. And she seals it before she tells the faint, asking the girls never to let Faye know, so no one will check with Faye. That is a lie built in advance.
Oh! I guess I was thinking of something.
Don’t you girls ever let her know I told you.
Made on the spot. No one says a word about Faye’s health until Grace says she will ask her, and Kate has to keep the girls away from Faye on the night of a secret surprise. She even turns Ethel’s question into the reason for her own silence. The faint is a quick fence around the party.
I’m going to ask Faye.
Maybe that’s what I was thinking about.
A strong answer A strong response names a moment and uses the timing. One reader says the story was ready: Kate was quiet all night, “thinking of something,” and the story comes with a tea, a faint, a doctor and a request for secrecy. Another says it was made on the spot: nothing is said about Faye until Grace says she will ask her, and Kate turns Ethel’s question into the reason for her own silence. The best answers notice how Ethel’s “bright flush” finishes the work for her, and leave open what the story is for, as the chapter does.
3. Faye asks, “Do you think I use the name I was born with?” Kate gives her a long, level look. A moment later she is sitting on the floor with her cheek on Faye’s knee. What has Kate just learned?Character
What it asks It asks the student to read one look by what comes after it. Faye has given Kate a will: “All my worldly goods without exception to Kate Albey because I regard her as my daughter.” She tells Kate there is over sixty thousand dollars. Kate says a will “sounds like death,” then smiles “ruefully” and raises a danger herself: “I thought of all your kin coming in angrily to break such a will as this. You can’t do this.” Faye answers, “I have no folks. As far as I know I have no kin. And if I did have some—who would know? Do you think you are the only one with secrets? Do you think I use the name I was born with?” Then “Kate looked long and levelly at Faye.” Faye begs her not to be “frozen.” Kate pulls the table aside, sits on the floor and lays her cheek on Faye’s knee, tracing a gold thread on the skirt while Faye strokes her hair and touches the borders of her scar. The student decides what Kate has just learned. It feeds the hinge: the chapter’s warmest moment comes right after this look, and the hinge asks whether that warmth is as real as what follows. The card must not say who Faye was before, who “A.” on the watch is, or what Kate’s own secrets are beyond this chapter.
That the will is safe. Kate raised the one danger herself: kin who would come to break it. Faye’s answer removes it. There is no family, and no one would even know who Faye was. The last obstacle is gone, and the cheek on the knee is a winner at rest.
I thought of all your kin coming in angrily to break such a will as this.
I have no folks. As far as I know I have no kin.
That Faye is like her. Faye has buried a name and a past too. For a moment Kate is looking at someone of her own kind, and what follows is the gentlest touch in the chapter: Faye’s fingers on the scar, Kate’s on the gold thread.
Do you think you are the only one with secrets?
Shyly Faye’s fingers explored to the borders of the scar.
A strong answer A strong response names what Kate learns and reads the look by what follows it. One reader says she learns the will is safe: she raised the danger of kin herself, and Faye has just said there is none. Another says she learns that Faye has a buried name too, and that the tenderness after the look, the scar and the gold thread, answers it. The best answers notice that one look could hold both, and that the chapter does not take us inside Kate’s head at this moment.
4. Before she pours cold water in Faye’s ear, Kate opens the door to the hall. Who is the open door for?Inference
What it asks It asks the student to notice one small choice at the end of the long dawn. Once the paregoric has put Faye to sleep, Kate panics, drinks mustard and water to bring up the wine, and goes over the evening “like a sniffing animal.” She puts Faye to bed. Then she brings Faye near waking again and again and lets her sink back: ammonia on a handkerchief, and the blunt end of an ivory crochet hook pressed into the tender places of her body. When the first breath of ammonia wakes her, Kate says, “It’s all right, Mother. It’s all right. You had a nightmare.” After that she stops each time just before Faye wakes, and at the end strokes her forehead and tells her, “You’re having a bad dream.” Name these plainly once and do not dwell on them; the question is what they are for. Then Kate goes to her own room, puts on her nightgown, robe, slippers and a sleeping cap, and comes back. “Kate opened the door to the hall.” Only then does she pour cold water in Faye’s ear. Faye screams; Ethel looks out “in time to see Kate in robe and slippers at Faye’s door”; the cook tries to stop her going in; three girls stand in the doorway. Kate tells them, “She’s had a nightmare,” and sends them to bed. The student decides who the open door is for. It feeds the hinge: this is where Kate turns what Faye saw into “a bad dream.” The card must not say that Kate means to kill Faye or what happens to Faye next, and must not say the girls or the cook suspect anything.
For the house. Ethel looks out just in time to see Kate at the door, and the cook stops her at the threshold. Kate has dressed for the part, so the witnesses will say the first person at Faye’s side came from her own bed. The girls will remember a nightmare and a tireless nurse.
Ethel’s frightened face looked out of her room in time to see Kate in robe and slippers at Faye’s door.
Kate was tireless. The other girls remarked on it.
For Faye. A scream the whole house hears becomes a nightmare the whole house is told about. Faye wakes into a room of people who have just heard it called a nightmare, and she says the word herself in front of them. The open door turns Faye’s own scream into proof against what she saw.
She’s had a nightmare—she’ll be all night.
Oh, darling—the dreams, the dreams! I can’t stand them!
A strong answer A strong response chooses an audience and follows the order of Kate’s moves. One reader says the door is for the house: Kate dresses as if from bed, Ethel sees her at the door, and the girls remember a tireless nurse. Another says it is for Faye: a scream the house hears becomes a nightmare the house is told about, and Faye cries out about “the dreams” in front of them. The best answers notice that the door serves both, and that the dawn before it was spent teaching Faye one word, “dream.”
5. In the morning Faye says of the dreams, “They weren’t like my dreams.” How much of her believes it was only a dream?Character
What it asks It asks the student to stand with Faye at the end. The narrator lets her be warm, lonely and finally afraid, and she is the only person in the chapter who has seen both Kates. All morning Kate nurses her: cold towels, tea, petting. Yet “the look of horror would not go out of Faye’s eyes.” At ten the cook, Alex, brings beer, and Faye says, “I never want another drink.” She is “afraid to sleep.” When Kate asks her to tell the dreams, Faye shrinks back: “I wouldn’t tell anyone. How I could have dreamed them! They weren’t like my dreams.” Kate answers, “I’ll keep the dreams away,” and Faye sleeps. The student decides how much of Faye believes it was a dream. It feeds the hinge: the night before, Faye begged, “I want you to be like you were,” and the hinge asks which Kate is real; Faye’s morning is the chapter’s own test of which one she can live with. The card must not say what Faye does next or what happens to her, and must not make her a joke for trusting.
Nearly all of her. She takes the word from Kate the first time it is offered. She will not tell anyone what she dreamed, as if ashamed that her own mind made it. “How I could have dreamed them!” is the cry of someone blaming herself, not Kate.
Yes, a dream
I wouldn’t tell anyone. How I could have dreamed them!
Some part of her knows. The horror will not leave her eyes however Kate pets her. She refuses drink and fears sleep. And “They weren’t like my dreams” is a careful sentence: Faye knows her own mind, and what she saw does not belong to it.
She petted and babied her, but the look of horror would not go out of Faye’s eyes.
I’m afraid to sleep.
A strong answer A strong response measures Faye’s belief and points to her own words. One reader says nearly all of her believes it: she takes the word “dream” at once, and her shame (“How I could have dreamed them!”) blames her own mind. Another says some part of her knows: the horror stays in her eyes, she fears sleep, and “They weren’t like my dreams” is a judgment, not a muddle. The best answers notice that Faye can believe it and know it at once, and that she falls asleep on Kate’s promise.
1. As Kate turns on Faye, the narrator stops to show her teeth. The canines are “longer and more pointed than the others.” Does that picture help you understand Kate, or does it let you stop trying?
What it asks It asks the student to judge one of the writer’s choices. Faye has said, “You look so strange,” and blamed “the lamplight,” and Kate has answered, “I am different.” When Faye begs her not to be mean, Kate wrenches the bottle from her, drains it and drops it. Then the narrator gives her face: “Her face was sharp and her eyes glinted. The lips of her little mouth were parted to show her small sharp teeth, and the canines were longer and more pointed than the others.” She laughs softly and begins the cruel talk of the regulars, the razors and the whips. Earlier the chapter showed Faye touching Kate’s “strange ears” and the scar. Once Faye is asleep, Kate retches up the wine at the kitchen sink. Then the narrator reaches for an animal again: she goes over the evening “like a sniffing animal.” The student writes a thesis on whether the picture of the teeth helps a reader understand Kate or lets a reader stop trying, meets the strongest objection, and revises. It feeds the hinge: the teeth are the narrator’s own vote on which Kate is real, and the last written question asks the student to cast theirs. The card must not linger on the razors and whips, and must not say what “the other time” was.
It helps. The chapter has been about a face that hides, and here the body shows through. Faye has touched the strange ears and the scar, and now the mouth opens. The narrator gives the reader a sight Faye is too drunk to read, since she blames the lamplight. The teeth say plainly what the disguise has covered.
The lips of her little mouth were parted to show her small sharp teeth, and the canines were longer and more pointed than the others.
I guess it’s the lamplight.
It lets us stop. Long canines belong to a creature, and before dawn the narrator gives her an animal’s nose as well. A creature needs no understanding; it does what creatures do. Yet between the two pictures Kate holds the sink while the mustard burns, a woman paying to get her mind back. The fangs offer an easy answer that the page itself does not settle for.
She went over the evening in her mind, moving from scene to scene like a sniffing animal.
She held on to the edge of the sink while the paste went burning down.
A strong answer A strong response builds a thesis, meets the strongest objection, and revises. One thesis says the teeth help: the chapter is about a face that hides, and here the body shows what Faye, blaming “the lamplight,” cannot see. The strongest objection is that the narrator does it twice, teeth and then a “sniffing animal,” and a creature needs no reasons, while the same pages show a woman retching at the sink to get her mind back. A good revision might hold that the pictures show what Kate does but not why, and weigh why the narrator gives the reader both within a page.
2. Just before the wine takes hold, Kate “remembered, and she was afraid.” Should a reader feel any pity for her here?
What it asks It asks the student to judge Kate at the first moment the chapter shows her afraid of what is in her. Before the wine she holds back: “Do we need it, Mother?” and “I never have drunk much, it’s not good for me.” Faye will not drink until Kate’s glass is empty. Then: “Kate’s chemistry screamed against the wine. She remembered, and she was afraid.” After the second glass, “This was what she had been afraid of, and now it was too late,” and “The thing she had learned to cover and control was lost.” Once Faye is asleep, “Dread began to gather in the corners of Kate’s mind, and out of dread came panic.” She drinks mustard and water to bring the wine up. Then, sober and steady, she spends the dawn hurting Faye and calling it a bad dream. The student writes a thesis on whether a reader should feel any pity for Kate in that moment of fear, meets the strongest objection, and revises. It feeds the hinge: if the fear is real, the sneering woman is something Kate herself dreads, and the last written question asks whether that woman is the real Kate. The card must not say what “the other time” was, must not read Kate as simply wicked, and must not linger on the dawn’s cruelty.
Yes. The fear is real, and the narrator puts it in her body before her mind: her “chemistry screamed.” She tries not to drink, and Faye will not let her off. Whatever she remembers, it frightens her before the wine and sickens her after it. A person afraid of what is in her deserves some pity, even when she is cruel.
Kate’s chemistry screamed against the wine.
Well, I never have drunk much, it’s not good for me.
Little or none. Look at what she fears: not hurting Faye, but losing the control she has learned. When the fear comes back as dread and panic, it does not make her sorry. It makes her careful, and by dawn she is hurting Faye again, sober. Her fear guards her, not Faye.
The thing she had learned to cover and control was lost.
Kate acted slowly and precisely.
A strong answer A strong response builds a thesis, meets the strongest objection, and revises. One thesis says yes: the fear is real and bodily, she tries not to drink, and afterward she is sick with dread, so the chapter shows a woman frightened of something in herself. The strongest objection is the dawn: the fear returns and makes her careful, not sorry, so what she fears is being seen, not doing harm. A good revision might grant pity for the fear while refusing it for what she does once her control is back, and weigh why the narrator shows her fear at all.
3. When the wine breaks down Kate's “barriers and defenses”, Faye sees a woman she does not know. Is that sneering woman the real Kate, or is the careful, loving daughter just as real?
What it asks It asks the chapter’s whole question. Before the second glass Kate sits on the floor with her cheek on Faye’s knee and says, “I think I’ve never been so happy before.” After it, “Her voice became chill and her mouth was thin,” and she says, “Mother—dear Mother—I’m going to show you how to run a whorehouse.” Faye says, “You look so strange,” and pleads, “I want you to be like you were.” Kate answers, “I am different,” and, “Well, it’s too late.” The narrator says the wine broke “all the carefully built barriers and defenses and deceptions,” and that “The thing she had learned to cover and control was lost.” Yet the sober Kate is the one who plants the faint in the parlor, and the sober Kate spends the dawn with the ammonia and the hook, then nurses Faye all morning, tireless, and promises, “I’ll keep the dreams away.” The student writes a thesis on whether the sneering woman is the real Kate or the careful, loving daughter is just as real, meets the strongest objection, and revises. The card must not say that Kate means to kill Faye or what happens to Faye next, who “A.” is, what “the other time” was, or that the girls or the cook suspect anything.
The sneering woman is the real Kate. The narrator’s own words make the daughter a construction: barriers, defenses, deceptions, things she “learned to cover and control.” What the wine let out is what all that was built to hide.
The wine had forced a passage through all the carefully built barriers and defenses and deceptions, and she didn’t care.
Mother—dear Mother—I’m going to show you how to run a whorehouse.
The careful daughter is just as real. It is not a costume over the true Kate; it is what she does every waking hour, and she pays for it with mustard and a sleepless dawn. The narrator gives her fear and something like happiness on Faye’s knee. A self kept up that hard is a self too, and it is the careful one who is still sitting by the bed at the end.
I think I’ve never been so happy before
Kate was tireless.
A strong answer A strong response builds a thesis, meets the strongest objection, and revises. One thesis says the sneering woman is the real Kate: the narrator calls the daughter “carefully built,” a thing “learned,” and the wine only removed it. The strongest objection is the chapter’s last section, where the sober, careful Kate is as cruel as the drunk one and also tireless at Faye’s bedside, so the line between the two may not fall where the wine draws it. A good revision might hold that the drunk Kate is the one who does not care and the sober Kate is the one who chooses, and weigh which of those a reader should call the real one.
Her wide-set eyes slitted and grew watchful and sardonic.Mocking in a cold, bitter way; amused by someone else’s foolishness or pain. The word comes through Latin from Greek, and an old story ties it to a Sardinian plant that twisted the faces of those who ate it into a grin, so a sardonic smile has no warmth in it. The narrator puts the word on Kate’s eyes at the moment the wine takes hold, and pairs it with “watchful”: she is enjoying Faye and studying her at the same time. Set it beside dusk in Faye’s room, when “Kate’s face was a glow of lightness,” to hear how far the face has moved.
She lifted Faye’s right eyelid, and the eye looked rakishly up at her but it was not rolled back in her head.In a cocky, careless way, like a hat tipped to one side. A rake was a man about town with loose habits, and “rakish” keeps his swagger. Here the word lands on the eye of a drugged woman, tilted up under a lid that Kate has lifted, so for a moment Faye looks almost cheeky while she is helpless. The joke is the narrator’s, and it is cold. Kate is checking that the eye is not rolled back, and the next sentence says she “acted slowly and precisely.”