East of Eden

Chapter 27

John Steinbeck · Mountaineers 10th–12th

Teaching Companion Print Adapt for your student

Copywork

Some children want to be babies and some want to be adults. Few are content with their age. Abra wanted to be an adult. She used adult words and simulated, insofar as she was able, adult attitudes and emotions. She had left babyhood far behind, and she was not capable yet of being one of the grownups she admired. Cal sensed this, and it gave him the instrument to knock down her anthill.

Before the first turn Abra’s hand came up and the box went sailing backward into the road. Cal watched his brother’s face and saw misery come into Aron’s eyes. When Adam had gone back into the house and Lee was moving out with a pan of grain to feed the chickens, Cal put his arm around his brother’s shoulders and hugged him reassuringly.

Read the first passage aloud. The narrator says Cal found what he needed “to knock down her anthill.” What was Abra’s anthill?

For the educator The two passages show Cal’s method from two sides: first the weakness he finds in Abra, then the moment when the hurt lands on Aron and Cal comforts him. The first passage moves from a saying about everyone to one girl and then to Cal. Its first sentence is an antithesis built on a repeated frame: “want to be babies” on one side, “want to be adults” on the other. The second and third are short: a general claim, “Few are content with their age”, and then the particular case, “Abra wanted to be an adult.” The fourth is broken by a phrase set off with commas, “insofar as she was able,” which measures exactly how far her grown-up manner reaches; insofar is a vocabulary word. The word adult comes back again and again across these four sentences, so the reader feels how hard she is reaching. The fifth is a compound sentence that holds her between two ages: “far behind” on one side and “not capable yet” on the other. The sixth turns to Cal with a short clause, “Cal sensed this,” and ends on a metaphor that calls back the narrator’s anthill a few paragraphs earlier, where Aron watches the hill and Cal kicks it to pieces. The second passage is the chapter’s last paragraph before the closing talk. Its first sentence opens on a time phrase with no comma, “Before the first turn”, and joins two actions with and. The second has Cal watch, the same verb the anthill paragraph gives him, and see “misery come into Aron’s eyes.” The third is a periodic sentence: it sends Adam into the house and Lee off to the chickens before it reaches its main clause, the hug, and ends on the adverb “reassuringly”, a vocabulary word. Students copying practice an antithesis on a repeated frame, short sentences that narrow from general to particular, a phrase set off by commas, a compound sentence balanced between two states, a closing metaphor, and a periodic sentence that holds its main clause until late. For the talk prompt, some will say Abra’s anthill is her command of the boys, which she won on the porch: “She was the boss.” Some will say it is her grown-up manner and the stories in which she plays the lady. Some will say it is her certainty, which Cal feels “wavering” and prods further. Leave it open; the written questions take up the second passage’s hug.

Discussion

Narration Tell the chapter back, from the arrow in the willows to Cal’s last words to Aron. Then choose the one sentence you would keep if you could keep only one, and say why.

Standing over the rabbit, Cal keeps offering Aron the credit. He also keeps saying the arrow is his. What does Cal want Aron to say? Character
Aron asks if Cal really heard those men. Cal says quickly, “Maybe I only thought I did,” and tells him to look at the cloud. What does that answer leave Aron believing? Inference
When the storm soaks them, the boys look at each other and laugh “for joy.” Is that the same joy the narrator later says Cal gets from power? Tone
In the living room, Adam remembers his brother’s “mean, fierce eyes” and “hot temper.” Suddenly he wants to see him. What pulls him toward a brother like that? Theme
Abra offers to be their mother and to rock them. Aron seems almost to rock in her arms. Cal tells her they are too big. Why does Cal turn down what Aron takes? Character

Make a Connection Think of someone in a story, or in your own life, who stopped asking for something they wanted. What took its place?

Vocabulary

magnanimously: “You can carry him,” he said magnanimously. In a generous, big-hearted way, especially toward someone weaker or beaten; rising above a petty quarrel. It comes from the Latin magnus, great, and animus, spirit: a great-souled person. Steinbeck uses it with a straight face and a sharp edge. Cal has just put the disputed arrow in his own quiver, and now he grants Aron the job of carrying the dead rabbit as if it were a favor. The word names the pose of generosity that only a winner can afford.
sardonically: He saw Charles’ face grinning sardonically—Charles—the mean, fierce eyes, the hot temper. In a mocking, scornful way, with a bitter smile that takes pleasure in someone else’s discomfort. An old Greek story told of a plant from Sardinia that twisted the face of anyone who ate it into a grin, and the word still carries that cold edge. Adam remembers Charles grinning sardonically in the same memory as the drills and the pack of rocks: a grin with no comfort in it. Set it beside Cal’s “small sure smile” as Aron walks away from him by the river.
insofar: She used adult words and simulated, insofar as she was able, adult attitudes and emotions. To the degree that; as far as. It is three words run together, in so far, and it nearly always comes with as: “insofar as she was able”. It marks a limit, and here the limit is the point. Abra can borrow the words and manner of a grown woman only so far, and the gap between what she plays at and what she is gives Cal his opening. The narrator measures her exactly before Cal finds where to push.
reassuringly: When Adam had gone back into the house and Lee was moving out with a pan of grain to feed the chickens, Cal put his arm around his brother’s shoulders and hugged him reassuringly. In a way meant to comfort someone, to calm a fear and give back their confidence. To reassure is to make someone sure again, so the word assumes that something has shaken them. Cal hugs Aron reassuringly just after Abra throws away the box that Cal hinted held something that bites. The adverb says what the hug is meant to look like and to do; it does not say what Cal feels, and the chapter leaves that to the reader.

Critical thinking

Cal hints that something in the box bites, says Lee has scarred Aron’s back, and whispers that Abra has wet her pants. Which of the three sends the box sailing into the road?
In the narrator’s words, Cal “preferred what he had to what Aron had.” Go by what Cal does in this chapter. Would he trade?
The narrator says Cal punishes people because he wishes he were loved the way Aron is, though he has forgotten that. Does knowing his reason make Cal easier to forgive?