East of Eden

Chapter 21

John Steinbeck · Mountaineers 10th–12th

Teaching Companion Print Adapt for your student

Copywork

In human affairs of danger and delicacy successful conclusion is sharply limited by hurry. So often men trip by being in a rush. If one were properly to perform a difficult and subtle act, he should first inspect the end to be achieved and then, once he had accepted the end as desirable, he should forget it completely and concentrate solely on the means. By this method he would not be moved to false action by anxiety or hurry or fear. Very few people learn this.

She thought to the end very quickly and then put it out of her mind. She set herself to work on method. She built a structure and attacked it, and if it showed the slightest shakiness she tore it down and started fresh. This she did only late at night or otherwise when she was completely alone, so that no change or preoccupation was noticeable in her manner. Her building was constructed of personalities, materials, knowledge, and time. She had access to the first and last, and she set about getting knowledge and materials, but while she did that she set in motion a series of imperceptible springs and pendulums and left them to pick up their own momenta.

Read the first passage aloud. It never names Kate. Who is the “he” in the third sentence?

For the educator The first passage is the chapter’s argument, set out before Kate is named. Its first sentence is a generalization with an alliterating pair, “danger and delicacy,” and no comma anywhere; it sounds like a proverb. The second sentence says the same thing in plain words, with one concrete verb, “trip.” The third sentence is the long one, and it holds the whole method. It opens on a condition (“If one were properly to perform”), sets two “he should” clauses on either side of “and then,” and tucks a clause inside the second (“once he had accepted the end as desirable”), so the reader holds the end in mind at the very moment of being told to forget it. The fourth sentence ends on three things joined by a repeated “or” (“anxiety or hurry or fear”), all feelings, so the method’s promise is freedom from feeling. The fifth sentence is five words. The second passage is the rule put to work, and its sentences answer the first passage. Its first sentence replays the rule’s two moves in plain words: think to the end, then put it out of mind. The second trades the rule’s “means” for a working word, “method.” The third turns the plan into a building and strings four actions on “and” (built, attacked, tore down, started fresh); the vocabulary word “shakiness” is the builder’s test. The fourth begins with its object, “This she did,” and ends on “preoccupation,” a word from the same family the narrator later uses for the tired Dr. Wilde, “a little vague and preoccupied.” The fifth is a list that puts people first among her building materials. The sixth is the long one, and it changes the picture from a building to a clock: people become “springs and pendulums” that Kate sets moving and leaves alone, ending on the second vocabulary word, “momenta.” Students copying practice a proverb-like sentence with an alliterating pair, a plain restatement, a long sentence with a clause set inside it, three items joined by repeated “or,” a short closing sentence, a run of actions joined by “and,” a sentence that begins with its object, a list, and a long closing sentence that turns on “but.” For the talk prompt, some will say the “he” is anyone, the reader included; some will say it is Kate already, made general; some will hear the narrator giving advice he half admires. Leave it open. Whether the rule is good advice is what the last written question asks.

Discussion

Narration Tell the chapter back, from the narrator’s rule about hurry to Trixie remembering the will. Then choose the one sentence you think matters most. Why does the chapter need it?

The narrator says, “First the cook told about the will. It must have been the cook. He thought he did anyway.” Who do you think told? Inference
The narrator never shows Kate take the bottles from Dr. Wilde’s dispensary. Instead he shows her push a book back “shoulder to shoulder with its brothers.” Why give us the book and not the theft? Author's choice
Faye asks Kate if she still turns tricks. Kate says, “Why should I? You take such good care of me.” Did Kate answer the question? Character
Two days after the beans, the narrator says only, “That was October 17.” Then four months pass in a few lines of dates. Kate never hurries. Why does the chapter hurry here? Plot structure
The chapter’s first paragraph says that once you settle on your goal, you should “forget it completely.” Its last paragraph says Kate “forgot completely about the will.” Do you believe she forgot? Inference

Make a Connection Think of a story, or a time in your own life, when someone’s kindness made it hard to see anything else about them. What does kindness do to the way we look at a person?

Vocabulary

shakiness: She built a structure and attacked it, and if it showed the slightest shakiness she tore it down and started fresh. The state of being unsteady, likely to wobble or give way, as a ladder or a voice can be. It is built from shake and shaky with the noun ending -ness, a plain word put to a builder’s use. Kate’s plan is a “structure,” and she is its own inspector: she attacks it herself, and at “the slightest shakiness” she tears it down and starts again. The test is a builder’s test, whether the thing will stand. Notice that she does this “late at night” and “completely alone,” so no one sees the tearing down.
momenta: She had access to the first and last, and she set about getting knowledge and materials, but while she did that she set in motion a series of imperceptible springs and pendulums and left them to pick up their own momenta. The plural of momentum: the force a moving thing gathers that keeps it moving after the push has stopped. The word is Latin, from movere, to move, the root of motion and moment. Everyday English often says momentums; Steinbeck’s Latin plural sounds exact, like a physics lesson. He pictures people as parts of a clock, “springs and pendulums.” Kate sets them swinging and leaves them to carry on by themselves. Watch the cook, Alex, in the kitchen: one push, and “In a moment he would be sure that he had” told.
codicils: There were codicils. Additions to a will, written after it is signed, that change or add to it. The word comes from the Latin codicillus, a small writing tablet or short note, and is related to code and codex. The narrator turns it into a dry joke about old Mrs. German, who “had not been able to terminate her life neatly”: her dying kept adding last clauses, the way a will collects codicils. The joke sits inside a chapter that turns on a will. In the first section each girl holds Faye’s will in her own hands, and the chapter’s last line is about who remembers it.

Critical thinking

Dr. Wilde finds two women sick and a tray of home-canned beans that no one else ate. He calls it botulism. Was he fooled because of his weaknesses or because of his strengths?
Cotton Eye tells Kate how he lost his sight, a story he had never told anyone. That Saturday he takes the chain off the piano strings and plays Beethoven. Five small bottles are already hidden in her closet. Does that make his music count for less?
The narrator says that to do a hard and delicate thing well, you settle on the goal, then forget it and think only of the next step. After watching Kate use that method, is it good advice?