East of Eden

Chapter 25

John Steinbeck · Mountaineers 10th–12th

Teaching Companion Print Adapt for your student

Copywork

He sat in the sun on the bench outside the forge, holding the telegram in his hand. And he looked at the hills and at the old house, as though to save something, before he tore open the envelope and read the inevitable four words, the person, the event, and the time. Tom slowly folded the telegram and folded it again and again until it was a square no larger than his thumb. He walked to the house, through the kitchen, through the little living room, and into his bedroom. He took his dark suit out of the clothespress and laid it over the back of a chair, and he put a white shirt and a black tie on the seat of the chair. And then he lay down on the bed and turned his face to the wall.

The clouds against the evening sky were the gray of rats, and the air was not damp but dank. I guess the difference is that dampness comes down but dankness rises up out of rot and fermentation. The afternoon wind had dropped away and left the air raw and wounded. It was cold enough to shake out the curtains of rum in Adam’s head without restoring his timidity.

Read the first passage aloud. Tom looks at the hills and the old house “as though to save something” before he opens the envelope. What is he trying to save?

For the educator The two passages frame the road from grief to Kate’s door. The first is the chapter’s opening scene. Its first sentence holds Tom still, “holding the telegram in his hand.” The second is long and saves its action for the end: it delays the reading with a look at “the hills and at the old house, as though to save something,” and closes on a list set beside its noun, “the inevitable four words, the person, the event, and the time”, which says what the telegram held without giving one word of it. The third repeats one action until it becomes a feeling: Tom “folded the telegram and folded it again and again”. The fourth walks through the house in three steps, “through the kitchen, through the little living room, and into his bedroom.” The fifth is plain preparation: the suit from the “clothespress”, a vocabulary word, then shirt and tie. The last is short and turns away: he “turned his face to the wall.” No sentence names grief. Let the student hear that before anyone says it. The second passage is the narrator’s, on the evening Adam walks to Kate’s. Its first sentence gives the clouds a hard comparison, “the gray of rats”, and turns on “not damp but dank.” The second, in the narrator’s own voice (“I guess”), explains that turn with another: dampness “comes down” but dankness “rises up out of rot and fermentation.” The third gives the air a wound, “raw and wounded.” The fourth brings Adam back with a figure, “the curtains of rum”. Its key word, “dankness”, is a vocabulary word. Students copying practice a sentence held still before an action, a long sentence that saves its verb for the end and closes on a list, repetition that carries feeling, a three-step walk with “through” and “into”, a short closing sentence, and a contrast built on but. For the talk prompt, some will say Tom is trying to save the last moment before he knows, the world in which his father is still alive. Some will say the place itself, the old house and the hills in bloom after a wet and wonderful winter, as they look before the news changes them. Some will say he is saving himself a little longer. Leave it open, and do not say how Samuel died.

Discussion

Narration Tell the chapter back, from the wet spring and Tom’s telegram to Kate alone in her silk room. Then pick the one sentence you think the chapter turns on. What is different after it?

Adam walks away from the casket because the face “did not look like Samuel’s face,” but at Kate’s he studies her face until he can forget the one he remembers. Is he right to trust his memory the first time and his eyes the second? Theme
Kate’s room has “no picture on the wall, no photograph or personal thing of any kind”, but her filing cabinets hold a hundred photographs of the men who come to her house. What would one picture of her own on that wall give away? Author's choice
Adam feels good about punishing Kate but stays watchful, telling himself, “Don’t talk, don’t talk.” What is he afraid he might say? Inference
When Kate hints that his sons may be his brother’s, Adam says it “wouldn’t matter at all,” and he laughs “because he knew that this was so.” What has he just found out? Inference
All evening Kate calls Adam a fool, and then she says, “I hate you now for the first time.” What has he done to earn her hate? Character

Make a Connection Think of a story, or a time in your own life, when someone saw a person again after years of imagining them. What happened to the picture they had carried?

Vocabulary

clothespress: He took his dark suit out of the clothespress and laid it over the back of a chair, and he put a white shirt and a black tie on the seat of the chair. A tall cupboard for clothes; a wardrobe. Press here is an old word for a large cupboard, as in a linen press, so the compound means the cupboard where the clothes are kept. Tom takes his dark suit from it. The first thing he does with the news, without a word to anyone, is lay out what he will wear to the funeral.
dankness: I guess the difference is that dampness comes down but dankness rises up out of rot and fermentation. The state of being dank: cold, wet and smelling of rot or mold. Damp means only a little wet; dank adds the sense of something gone bad. The narrator draws the line himself: dampness “comes down”, but dankness “rises up out of rot and fermentation.” It is a distinction about where a thing comes from, made on the evening Adam walks to Kate’s house.
garrulousness: He felt a garrulousness coming on him and he was frightened at the impulse. The urge to talk too much and too freely. The adjective garrulous comes from the Latin garrire, to chatter. Adam, a man of few words, feels the rum loosening his tongue and is afraid of it, because the words that come are the ones he keeps locked away: “Do you know a place called Kate’s?”
inspective: He felt remote and inspective. Inclined to look closely and examine, in the mood of an inspector. It is built from inspect, from the Latin inspicere, to look into. Steinbeck pairs it with “remote”: Adam feels far off and watchful at once, as if he were studying Kate from a distance. The word is rare, and the narrator’s next sentences say where the mood came from.

Critical thinking

On his knees, Adam tells Kate that his love “was so strong that it took quite a killing.” Who or what did the killing?
Kate tells Adam, “Nobody can hurt me.” Does the rest of the chapter prove her right?
Kate shows Adam her photographs to prove that people are all liars and fools, and Adam answers that she hates “the good in them you can’t get at.” Which of them sees people more truly?