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East of Eden
Mountaineers · 10th–12th
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?
The tension Kate expects that “You’ll come crawling back,” but Adam, struck down by her man Ralph, rises to his knees to say “It doesn’t matter at all”, and “I loved you better than anything in the world” and “It was so strong that it took quite a killing”, then smiles at her “as a man might smile at a memory.”
How Samuel’s death, a bartender’s warning and a bottle of rum bring Adam face to face with Kate, and why her hold on him breaks.
The chapter has three sections. First, after a wet and wonderful winter, with the valley in bloom, Tom Hamilton sits alone on the ranch when a boy flings a telegram on the ground and gallops off. Tom looks at the hills and the old house before he reads it, folds it to a square no bigger than his thumb, lays out his dark suit, and lies down facing the wall. The telegram’s words are not given; the next section shows that Samuel has died. Second, after Samuel’s funeral in Salinas, Adam Trask, who had not meant to come, lingers in the cemetery among the cypresses and white violets, keeping back from the grave because the face in the casket did not look like Samuel’s. He walks into town through mud and rain, and in the Abbot House bar he drinks brandy, then Mr. Lapierre’s hot rum, and at last the bartender’s old Jamaica rum. The drink loosens thoughts Adam keeps locked away, and he asks about Kate’s; the bartender twice tells him to go to Jenny’s instead. Third, on a raw evening Adam finds Kate’s dark, overgrown house. A sharp-faced girl, Eva, says Miss Kate is busy. In her silk room, which holds no personal thing, Kate is sorting photographs into envelopes. When she hears Adam’s name she gives Eva half a paper of her drug, has her man Ralph wait in the hall, and lays a revolver under a sheet of paper. Adam looks at her, older and thicker now, and says he came only to see her: Samuel told him he had never seen her, and now he can forget her. Kate offers to take him back, then pours rum. He will not drink until she does, since she shot him once, and the liquor strips her caution. She says she hated Samuel because he looked into her, speaks of her mother and father and of a man she says she made kill himself, and says the world is only evil and folly. To prove it she shows him photographs of a senator, a professor, a minister and others, and says a hundred such letters will go into the mail if anything happens to her, and when she goes away. Adam tells her she hates the good in people that she cannot reach. She speaks of a house in New York and of finding the man who broke her jaw. Adam rises to go; she asks him to stay, then hints that his sons may be his brother Charles’s. Adam says it would not matter and laughs. As he heads for the door she screams, Ralph knocks him down, and she orders him kicked; Ralph will not, since Adam is not fighting. Kate says she hates Adam now for the first time. On his knees Adam tells her he loved her better than anything in the world, and that it took quite a killing. He smiles at her as at a memory and closes the door gently. Kate sits staring at the door, her eyes desolate.
This is the chapter in which Adam finally faces Kate. Read the third section yourself first. Kate is Cathy, Adam’s wife, who shot him and left soon after the twins were born; in the chapter before, Samuel told Adam that she now runs a house in Salinas under the name Kate. The Line is the town’s row of brothels, and Jenny’s is another house on it. The chapter speaks plainly of the brothel, of Eva’s drug and needle, of Kate’s photographs of the men who come there, of a man Kate says she drove to his death, and of Ralph’s blow. Name each plainly and do not linger on it; what matters is what Kate uses the photographs to prove. Some old words: the Grand Army men were Union veterans of the Civil War, and Decoration Day is the old name for Memorial Day; a toddy is a hot drink of spirits, water and sugar; portieres are curtains hung across a doorway; ’dobe is adobe, a heavy clay soil. The “I” who explains dank and damp is the narrator, Samuel’s grandson. Do not say what the telegram said or how Samuel died, who the man is that Kate means to find, that Charles is the twins’ father, or that Kate will leave or mail the envelopes; the chapter settles none of these. Stop on the last line, “Her eyes were desolate.”
Retell The student tells the chapter back from the wet spring and Tom’s telegram to Kate staring at the door. Look for the three sections in order: Tom at the ranch; Adam at the cemetery and in the bar; Kate’s house. Look for the small people kept: Mr. Lapierre, Eva, Ralph. Look for the photographs, the drug and the blow named plainly, and no claim about the telegram’s words, the twins’ father or the envelopes. Then ask which sentence the student thinks the chapter turns on.
Imitate the author After copying, the student writes six sentences in the manner of the first passage, about someone receiving news they have dreaded: a sentence that holds the person still with the news unopened; a long sentence that looks at a place “as though to save something” and ends on a list of three; a sentence that repeats one action until it carries the feeling; a sentence that walks through rooms with “through”, “through” and “into”; a sentence of plain preparations; and a short last sentence of one small gesture. Then four sentences in the manner of the second, about the air of a place: a sentence with a hard comparison and a turn on but; a sentence in the writer’s own voice that tells two near-twin words apart; a sentence that gives the weather a wound; and a sentence on what the cold does to a person. Read both aloud beside Steinbeck’s and ask which sentence carries a feeling without naming it.
Debate Take sides on the last written question. One side argues that Kate sees people more truly. It gathers her mother and father “pretending goodness”, the man who begged at her door, the photographs of respected men, Adam’s refusal to look, his “None of this is true”, and his own pleasure in punishing her. The other side argues that Adam does. It gathers Samuel’s saying about knowing “one part very well”, the man who “must have been very sorry about something”, Mr. Lapierre’s care for a stranger, Eva’s “Will you be all right, Miss Kate?”, Ralph’s refusal, and Kate’s hatred of Samuel for looking into her. Each side must answer the other’s strongest piece. Neither may say that Charles is the twins’ father or what becomes of the envelopes, and the photographs are named, not described.
Purpose Close on the chapter’s design. Steinbeck opens on a wet and wonderful winter breaking into bloom, and on Tom, who reads “the inevitable four words” that the reader is never shown, and who grieves by folding paper and turning to the wall. He closes on Kate, who has spent the evening showing Adam what other people hide, staring at a shut door. Between them he sets a stranger’s kindness in a bar and a room where everything serves control, down to the revolver under the paper. He does not follow Adam out. Ask what the chapter gains by giving its last line to Kate. Name the habit the chapter practices: testing a claim about human nature against the people the story actually shows.
Easier Read aloud Tom’s section from “Tom heard a horse’s clattering hoofs” to “turned his face to the wall.”, the cemetery from “Adam had come up on the morning train.” to “strolled in the paths where the white violets grew.”, Kate’s room from “Kate’s private room was comfort and efficiency.” to “a straight chair beside it.”, the meeting from “Adam saw her hair, her scar, her lips” to “It was a pretty sharp lesson.”, the rum from “The biting alcohol burned in her throat” to “I don’t hate you. You’re just a weak fool.”, the argument from “Adam drained his glass.” to “I wonder what you want, what final thing.”, and the ending from “Kate put her elbows on her knees” to the last line. 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 chapter’s ways of looking. Tom meets Samuel’s death by folding the telegram small and turning to the wall. Adam meets it by keeping back from the words, “to preserve the man alive”. Then Adam meets Kate by looking until she is no longer a dream, and Kate hates Samuel for looking into her. Weigh whether the chapter treats looking away as weakness or as a kind of love. Meet the strongest objection: perhaps Adam’s wish not to see the photographs is the same habit Samuel named when he said Adam had never seen her.
1. 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
What it asks It asks the student to set two of Adam’s looks side by side. At the funeral, “Adam had looked at Samuel in his casket and knew that he didn’t want him to be dead.” Because “the face in the casket did not look like Samuel’s face, Adam walked away to be by himself and to preserve the man alive.” At the burial “he stood well back where he could not hear the words”. He “could not believe that Samuel was dead” and still hears “the rich, lyric voice in his ears”. At Kate’s he does the opposite. He “saw her hair, her scar, her lips, her creping throat, her arms and shoulders and flat breasts.” He stares “at her as though she were not alive.” He tells her, “I remember your face but I had never seen it. Now I can forget it.” The narrator adds that “The work of the years had been subtle.” The student decides whether Adam is right to trust memory over the dead face and his eyes over the remembered one. It feeds the hinge: whether Adam sees people truly turns on which of his ways of looking can be trusted. The card must not say how Samuel died.
Yes, both times. A dead face is not the man, and a remembered face was never the woman. Samuel really was what Adam remembers: he looked into Adam and helped him. Cathy never was what Adam remembered: by his own word he had never seen her. In both places Adam keeps what was real and lets go of what was not.
He looked into me too, and he helped me.
I remember your face but I had never seen it.
No. Both times he sees what he needs. He will not hear the words over Samuel’s grave because he wants him alive, and he stares at Kate as though she were dead because he wants to be free of her. What his eyes take in at Kate’s is her age: the throat, the ankles, later the hand like a monkey’s paw. Seeing that she has grown older is not the same as seeing her.
Adam walked away to be by himself and to preserve the man alive.
he continued to stare at her as though she were not alive.
A strong answer A strong response judges both looks and tests each judgment on the other. One reader says Adam is right both times: Samuel was the man Adam remembers, a friend who looked into him and helped him, and Cathy was never the woman he remembered, so keeping one and dropping the other is the same honest sight. Another says he sees what he needs each time: he keeps Samuel alive and stares at Kate as if she were dead, and what his eyes take in is her age rather than who she is. The best answers notice the mirror the chapter builds: a dead man kept alive, and a living woman looked at as though she were not.
2. 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
What it asks It asks the student to notice what Kate’s room leaves out. It is “comfort and efficiency”: saffron silk walls, apple-green drapes, a broad bed under a white satin cover, and at one end an office with filing cabinets, a safe and a rolltop desk. “There was no picture on the wall, no photograph or personal thing of any kind.” Her dressing table has “no bottle or vial” on it. Yet at that desk she sorts “a sheaf of photographs” of men who come to her house into four envelopes, and later she waves at the filing cabinets: “I have a hundred beautiful pictures in there”. The scar on her forehead is “covered with a powder tinted to match Kate’s skin.” She tells Adam, “A fool always leaves an opening,” and finds his. The student decides what one personal picture would give away. It feeds the hinge: a woman who keeps no picture of her own life keeps a hundred of other people’s secrets, and calls them the truth about people. Name the photographs plainly and do not linger on them.
Someone she loves, or once did. A picture on the wall says this person matters to me, and that is an opening. Kate lives by finding other people’s openings, so she leaves none of her own. One photograph could be used against her the way she uses theirs.
A fool always leaves an opening
I could always make people do what I wanted.
A past, a self that could be looked into. A picture would show where she came from and who she was, the thing Samuel saw and she hated him for seeing. She powders over even her scar. The room belongs to a woman who will not be seen, at the center of a business built on seeing others.
He looked—he looked into me.
The scar on her forehead was barely visible.
A strong answer A strong response names what a picture would reveal and grounds it. One reader says a person she loves: a picture would be an opening, and Kate, who finds everyone’s openings, leaves none. Another says her own past: a picture would let someone look into her, which is what she could not forgive in Samuel, and she even powders her scar. The best answers notice the contrast between a room with no pictures and a business that runs on them.
3. 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
What it asks It asks the student to listen to Adam’s silence at the moment he is winning. In the bar the rum loosened him: “He felt a garrulousness coming on him and he was frightened at the impulse. His voice did not sound like his voice, and his words amazed him.” At Kate’s he will not drink until she does, and as the liquor strips her caution, “A feeling completely foreign to him had arisen. He was enjoying what he saw in her. He liked to see her struggling. He felt good about punishing her, but he was also watchful.” He tells himself, “Now I must be careful,” and, “Don’t talk, don’t talk.” What he says aloud is only, “Sam Hamilton has been a good friend to me all the years. I’ll miss him.” Later he does talk, of “my boys”, and Kate answers, “A fool always leaves an opening”. The student decides what Adam is afraid he might say. It feeds the hinge: Adam’s claim about the good in people comes from a man who has just found something hard in himself. Do not call his freedom a simple victory, and do not say that Charles is the twins’ father.
Something cruel. Adam has just found a pleasure he never knew, in watching her struggle and in punishing her. If he speaks, he may say what she would say: something meant to wound. He stops himself because he does not want to become what he is looking at.
He liked to see her struggling.
He felt good about punishing her, but he was also watchful.
Something that opens him to her. The rum made him talk before, and his own words amazed him. Kate lives by finding a weak place. When he does talk later, about his sons, she finds one at once. He is afraid of handing her a way back in.
He felt a garrulousness coming on him and he was frightened at the impulse.
A fool always leaves an opening
A strong answer A strong response names what Adam fears and grounds it. One reader says something cruel: he has just found that he enjoys punishing her, and he stops before the pleasure finds words. Another says something that would let her back in: the rum loosened his tongue once already, and when he does speak of his sons she finds “an opening” at once. The best answers see that both fears are about Adam himself, and that the night is not a simple victory for him.
4. 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
What it asks It asks the student to stay with the laugh and say what Adam knows in it. Adam has said, “You are the mother of my sons.” Kate answers, “A fool always leaves an opening,” and asks, “how do you know you are the father?” She says she let him near her “just once”, that she “wasn’t too hurt for your brother”, and that one day he will remember “some tea that tasted bitter”. She tells him how it will work: “At first you will wonder, and then you’ll be unsure.” Adam first says, “I don’t believe it.” Then, his head reeling with the rum, he says, “It wouldn’t matter—even if it were true,” and, “It wouldn’t matter at all.” “And suddenly he laughed because he knew that this was so.” After Ralph knocks him down he says it again: “It doesn’t matter at all.” The student decides what Adam has found out. It feeds the hinge: Kate’s hold on the men in her photographs rests on what she knows mattering to them, and here, for once, what she claims to know does not matter. The card must not say that Charles is the twins’ father; Kate says it to wound, and the chapter never settles it.
Something about the boys. He has just called them his sons and her only their mother. Kate’s story is about who began them, and he finds that is not what makes them his. The laugh is a man finding that her last weapon cannot reach what he holds.
You are the mother of my sons.
It wouldn’t matter—even if it were true
Something about Kate and himself. Kate wins by finding what a person cares about and pressing on it; her photographs work because what she knows would ruin the men in them. Adam finds that nothing she can tell him about the past would change him now. He laughs at the moment her way with people stops working on him, and he knows it before she does.
And suddenly he laughed because he knew that this was so.
It doesn’t matter at all.
A strong answer A strong response names what Adam has found out and grounds it in the laugh. One reader says it is about the boys: he has just called them “my sons”, and he finds that who began them is not what makes them his. Another says it is about Kate: her hold on people, the men in her photographs among them, rests on what she knows mattering to them, and Adam finds that nothing she knows matters to him now. The best answers notice that he says “I don’t believe it” first, so the laugh is not disbelief but something past it, and they leave the question of the father unsettled, as the chapter does.
5. 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
What it asks It asks the student to find what turns Kate from scorn to hate. Of Samuel she says, “I hated him,” because “He looked—he looked into me.” Adam answers, “Might have been good if I had looked into you,” and she tells him, “You are a fool,” and, “I don’t hate you. You’re just a weak fool.” When he wonders what she hates so much, she says, “It isn’t hatred, it’s contempt.” Soon, though, she says, “That’s what I hate, the liars, and they’re all liars.” Through the evening Adam refuses her offer to get together and will not drink until she does. When he drains his glass he feels “remote and inspective” and thinks he can see her impulses “crawling like ants”. He moves away from her hand “in revulsion”, laughs at her story about Charles, and twists her hands from his arm. She screams, Ralph knocks him down, and Ralph will not give him the boots. Then “Kate sat down. She breathed through her mouth. Her hands writhed in her lap.” And: “I hate you. I hate you now for the first time.” Moments later Adam closes the door “gently behind him”, and the chapter ends on her: “Her eyes were desolate.” The student decides what Adam has done to earn the hate. It feeds the hinge: the two people Kate says she hates are the two who looked at her and were not moved, and what she hates may show what she cannot get at. The card must not say that Charles is the twins’ father.
He got away. Kate says no one has ever escaped her, and she could always make people do what she wanted. A fool can be scorned because he can be used. Tonight every hold fails: the rum, the offer of her bed, the story about Charles, even Ralph. A man she cannot move is no longer a fool to her, and hate is what is left.
No one has ever escaped
I could always make people do what I wanted.
He saw into her, as Samuel did. She hated Samuel for looking into her. Tonight Adam looks at her the same way, and he thinks he can read her impulses as they rise. He has done what Samuel did, and she hates him for the same thing.
He looked—he looked into me.
He thought he could see her impulses crawling like ants and could read them.
A strong answer A strong response names what Adam has done and grounds it in the change of words. One reader says he got away: the woman who says no one has ever escaped can scorn a man she can use, but not one she cannot move. Another says he saw into her: she hated Samuel for looking into her, and tonight Adam has looked at her until he thinks he can read her. The best answers notice that the hate comes at the moment her power fails, and that the chapter’s last line shows her not raging but desolate.
1. On his knees, Adam tells Kate that his love “was so strong that it took quite a killing.” Who or what did the killing?
What it asks It asks the student to trace how Adam’s love for Cathy died. On his knees after Ralph’s blow, he says, “Do you know, I loved you better than anything in the world? I did. It was so strong that it took quite a killing.” The chapter offers more than one killer. Kate shot him, and he has not forgotten: “You shot me once. I don’t know what else you’ve done.” Samuel told him the truth about her: “I guess it was Samuel said I’d never seen you, and it’s true.” Samuel’s death drew Adam to Salinas, and rum carried him to her door. When he first sees her, older and thicker now, he “sighed deeply” and “wanted to shout with relief”. That evening she shows him the photographs, tells him his sons may be his brother’s, and calls for Ralph’s boots. The student writes a thesis on who or what did the killing, meets the strongest objection, and revises. It feeds the hinge: if what freed Adam was looking at Kate, then how truly he sees is the whole question. The card must not say that Charles is the twins’ father or how Samuel died.
Kate did it, over years. The bullet was the first blow, and Adam calls it “a pretty sharp lesson”. Her long absence did the rest. Tonight she adds every weapon she has: the photographs, the story about Charles, the boots. Each one fails because her own old blows have already done the work. Adam came only to see that the love was dead.
You shot me once.
It was a pretty sharp lesson.
Adam did it himself, by looking. He came “just to prove it to myself”, and the proof was in his eyes: her hair, her scar, her creping throat, later her hand like a monkey’s paw. Samuel gave him the words, and Samuel’s death gave him the reason to come. But the love died when he sighed and wanted to shout with relief. Her weapons fail because there is nothing left for them to strike.
Now I see you, I mean.
He wanted to shout with relief
A strong answer A strong response builds a thesis, meets the strongest objection, and revises. One thesis says Adam killed it himself, by looking: he is relieved the moment he sees her, before she shows him anything. The strongest objection is the word itself: a love that “took quite a killing” did not die in one look, and Kate’s bullet and long absence had been at it for years. A good revision might hold that Kate struck the blows and Samuel named the wound, but only Adam’s own eyes could finish it.
2. Kate tells Adam, “Nobody can hurt me.” Does the rest of the chapter prove her right?
What it asks It asks the student to test Kate’s boast against what happens to her. She makes it after Adam calls her “a twisted human—or no human at all”: “I’d rather be a dog than a human. But I’m not a dog. I’m smarter than humans. Nobody can hurt me.” Her defenses are real. A hundred photographs in her cabinets keep the men in them afraid of her: “No, they won’t hurt me.” She keeps a revolver under a sheet of paper and Ralph in the hall. Yet when Eva says Adam’s name, “The fingers of Kate’s right hand slowly curled around the palm”. When he walks in, “Kate’s hand shook a little.” She tells him, “You frightened me.” She says liquor “poisons” her, and it beats her. When he looks at her fattened ankles, “Her quick rage did not change the little smile on her lips.” Of her plans she says, “I’ll go to New York and I won’t be old. I’m not old.” When he moves away from her hand “in revulsion”, she “saw his gesture and understood it and her mouth hardened.” She says, “When I was hurt I needed you”. And when Adam has gone, “Kate sat staring at the door. Her eyes were desolate.” The student writes a thesis on whether the chapter proves her right, meets the strongest objection, and revises. It feeds the hinge: Kate claims to know what people are, and this question asks whether she knows what she is. Name the photographs plainly and do not linger on them, and do not say that she will leave or mail the envelopes.
Yes. Nothing anyone does tonight changes her life. The men in the photographs cannot touch her, Ralph and the revolver are at hand, and her story about Charles leaves Adam’s mouth hanging open. Adam walks out, but walking away is not a wound; he takes nothing from her that she says she wanted. Her screams are rage, not hurt.
No, they won’t hurt me.
Adam’s mouth dropped open.
No. She is hurt all evening, only not by force. Adam’s name makes her hand shake. His glance at her ankles brings quick rage, and his flinch from her hand hardens her mouth. She insists she is not old, and admits she was once hurt and needed him. What hurts her is what no photograph can guard against: the years, and a man who no longer wants her. The chapter leaves her staring at a shut door.
Kate’s hand shook a little.
Her eyes were desolate.
A strong answer A strong response builds a thesis, meets the strongest objection, and revises. One thesis says the chapter proves her wrong: her hand shakes at Adam’s coming, his looks bring rage, his flinch hardens her mouth, and the chapter ends on her desolate eyes. The strongest objection is that none of this harms her: her business, her money and her safety stand as they were, and her story about Charles still makes Adam’s mouth drop open. A good revision might hold that Kate is right about force and wrong about everything force cannot reach: no one can harm her, but the years can, and so can a man who closes the door gently.
3. 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?
What it asks It asks the chapter’s whole question. Kate’s case: “When I was a little girl I knew what stupid lying fools they were—my own mother and father pretending goodness.” “I could always make people do what I wanted.” “That’s what I hate, the liars, and they’re all liars.” Adam asks, “Do you mean that in the whole world there’s only evil and folly?” “That’s exactly what I mean.” Her proof is the photographs: a state senator with a wife and family who means to run for Congress, a councilman, a rancher, a professor of philosophy, a minister. Adam says, “I don’t want to see these,” and she answers, “Well, you have seen them.” Adam’s case: Samuel “helped me”; Samuel’s saying that a woman who knows all about men “usually knows one part very well and can’t conceive the other parts”; the man who killed himself “must have been very sorry about something.” And: “I know what you hate. You hate something in them you can’t understand. You don’t hate their evil. You hate the good in them you can’t get at.” Around them the chapter offers its own small evidence: Mr. Lapierre sees a stranger’s chill, warms him, and sends him to Jenny’s; Eva asks, “Will you be all right, Miss Kate?”; Ralph, who has just struck Adam, will not kick a man who “ain’t fighting back.” Kate hated Samuel because “He looked—he looked into me.” The student writes a thesis on which of them sees people more truly, meets the strongest objection, and revises. The card must not say that Charles is the twins’ father, who the man is that Kate means to find, that she will leave or mail the envelopes, or how Samuel died.
Kate. Her evidence is real and his is mostly faith. The senator, the professor and the minister are respected men who pay for what they hide. Adam does not want to look at the pictures, and when she tells him her plans he says none of it is true. Even Adam, that night, finds he enjoys punishing her. A man who looks away from the worst cannot claim to see more.
Well, you have seen them.
None of this is true.
He felt good about punishing her
Adam. Kate’s pictures show what men do in one house, not all they are. Her own chapter argues with her: a bartender looks after a stranger, the girl at her door worries about her, a hired fist will not kick a man who is down, and a man who killed himself must have felt something. And she hated Samuel not for any lie but because he saw her. That fits Adam’s claim that what she cannot bear is the good.
You hate the good in them you can’t get at.
He looked—he looked into me.
He ain’t fighting back.
A strong answer A strong response builds a thesis, meets the strongest objection, and revises. One thesis says Adam sees more truly: Kate’s pictures show one part of men, as Samuel’s saying warns, her chapter is full of small goods she does not count, and her hatred of Samuel for seeing into her fits Adam’s claim. The strongest objection is that her evidence is real and his is faith: he does not want to look, he calls her plans untrue, and he enjoys punishing her himself. A good revision might hold that Kate sees what people hide more sharply than Adam does, but mistakes it for all there is.
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.
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.
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?”
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.