Chapter 27 — Teaching Companion

This chapter's big question

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?

The tension Cal hugs and kisses Aron after the rabbit, after the story of their mother, and after Abra throws the box away, yet each time he has just hurt him; the chapter shows the hurt and the embrace from the same hand and calls the result “a fluid of power, and out of power, joy.”

Today's focus

How two eleven-year-old brothers, one open and one secret, handle a rabbit, a rumor, and a girl from Salinas, and what the narrator says lies under the secret one’s cruelty.

The shape at a glance

The chapter has four sections. First, on a warm March day by the Salinas River, the twins Cal and Aron, eleven, shoot a brush rabbit; the chapter tells its last moments from the rabbit’s side. Over the body Cal keeps offering Aron the credit while insisting the nicked arrow is his, and when Aron gives way, Cal puts the arrow in his own quiver. Cal goads Aron into saying he is scared, then puts an arm around him and asks him not to be mad. On the walk home Cal tells a secret: he says their mother ran away and is not dead, as they were told. Aron, near tears, insists she is in Heaven. Cal puts the secret away as his sharpest weapon, but Aron flies at him, and Cal says it was a joke and hugs and kisses him. Asked whether he really heard the men, Cal says maybe he only thought he did. A storm drenches them, and once they are soaked they laugh for joy, Cal wearing the rabbit around his neck. Second, they find visitors driven in by the rain: Mr. Bacon, a county supervisor, Mrs. Bacon in black lace, and their daughter Abra in a sunbonnet. Aron, who at a woman’s voice hoped for a moment it was their mother, at last shakes her hand. Mrs. Bacon sends the three of them out to play. Third, in the living room, Mr. Bacon urges Adam to rent his unfarmed land and move near the schools of the county seat. Adam stops listening; his mind leaps to his father’s drills and his brother Charles, and he announces that he has forgotten to write to his brother for over ten years. Lee snorts with pleasure and brings the buggy around. Fourth, Abra drops her shyness, looks straight into the boys’ eyes and takes charge. In the old Sanchez house Cal offers her the rabbit, Aron promises to box it, and Abra feels the beginning of love for Aron. She offers to be their mother; Cal says they are too big. While Aron wraps the rabbit, Cal stares her down. The narrator sets out the brothers’ difference with an anthill and gives Cal’s reason: he punishes those who prefer Aron because he wishes to be loved as Aron is, though he has forgotten it. Cal hints that something in the box bites, says Lee has scarred Aron’s back, and as Abra leaves whispers that she has wet her pants. Before the first turn she throws Aron’s box into the road; it held a letter asking her to marry him. Cal hugs Aron and offers him the use of a rifle Aron says he does not have.

A way in

This is the chapter in which the twins, eleven, step forward as the book’s new pair of brothers. Read it yourself first, and read the narrator’s paragraphs about the anthill and Cal’s reason twice. Their mother, Cathy, shot Adam and left soon after they were born; they have been told she is dead and in Heaven. Lee, the Chinese man who keeps Adam’s house, raised them; in the chapter before he asked to leave and open a bookstore. Mr. Hamilton is Samuel Hamilton, Adam’s friend, recently buried. Charles is Adam’s half-brother back East, who in the book’s early chapters, jealous of their father’s love, beat Adam savagely; the questions do not need that history. The old Sanchez house is the adobe Adam was rebuilding when Cathy left. Some words need naming plainly: Cal calls Lee “a Chinaman”, a slur of the time; Lee speaks pidgin at the door, a manner the book has shown him put on; “faggots” are bundles of firewood, from the Cinderella story; the remark about “the inexorable logic of women” is the narrator’s own generalization. The boys also swear. Do not say where the twins’ mother is or whether Cal truly heard the men, that Cal has a rifle, that Adam reaches Charles, or what becomes of Abra or either twin later. Stop on Cal’s “Haven’t I though?”

Lesson plan

Retell The student tells the chapter back from the arrow in the willows to Cal’s last words. Look for the four sections in order: the rabbit, the secret and the storm; the visitors and the handshake; the living room and Adam’s memory of Charles; Abra on the porch, the old house, the box and the road. Look for the turns that carry the chapter: the arrow going into Cal’s quiver, the secret and the kiss, the laughter in the rain, Adam’s announcement, the anthill, the lies to Abra, the box in the road, and the rifle. Look for no claim about where the mother is or whether Cal has a rifle. Then ask which sentence the student would keep if they could keep only one.

Imitate the author After copying, the student writes six sentences in the manner of the first passage, about someone caught between two ages or two stages, such as a new student, a younger sibling or a beginner at a sport: a sentence built on a repeated frame, some … want to … and some want to …; a short general sentence; a short sentence that names the one person; a sentence broken by a phrase set off with commas, like “insofar as she was able”; a compound sentence that says what the person has left behind and what they cannot yet be; and a sentence that turns to a second person who notices, ending on an image. Then three sentences in the manner of the second, about the moment after a disappointment: a sentence that opens on a time phrase and joins two actions with and; a short sentence in which one person watches another’s face; and a long sentence that sends the other people away in a “When” clause before it reaches its main action. Read both aloud beside Steinbeck’s and ask where the judgment shows through without being stated.

Debate Take sides on the last written question. One side argues that knowing Cal’s reason makes him easier to forgive. It gathers “he wished he could be loved as Aron was loved”, “He had forgotten—if he had ever known”, Cal’s age, the hug and kiss after the secret, “Aron, wait for me!”, and the laughter in the rain. The other side argues that it does not. It gathers “He planned and waited”, “the sharpest weapon he had found”, “He would inspect it at his ease”, “It was the strongest, purest emotion he knew”, the lies to Abra, the whisper at the buggy, and “Haven’t I though?” Each side must answer the other’s strongest piece. Neither may say where the twins’ mother is, that Cal has a rifle, or what becomes of Abra or either twin.

Purpose Close on the chapter’s design. Steinbeck opens on a rabbit’s last moments, told from the rabbit’s side, and then gives the brothers a quarrel over who killed it. He sets the boys’ storm beside the living room, where Adam, lectured about his sons’ schooling, leaps back to his own brother. Then, in the middle of the scene in the old house, the narrator stops the story to explain Cal outright, with the anthill and with a reason Cal himself has forgotten. Ask what the chapter gains by telling the reader Cal’s reason plainly, when Cal does not know it, and by ending on a hug and a rifle that may not exist. Name the habit the chapter practices: holding a person’s hidden reason beside what they do, and judging both.

Three levels

Easier Read aloud the quarrel over the rabbit, from “Right through the heart” to “Aron smiled at last.”; the secret, from “I know a secret” to “I won’t do it any more”; the storm, from “Maybe I only thought I did” to “disturbed their high dignity.”; the woman’s voice, from “An emotion like a light had burst in Aron.” to “I’m going to put on dry clothes.”; the living room, from “He was thinking of a big globe of the world” to “exchanged glances.”; Abra in the old house, from “Sometimes we play here” to “Don’t you want to make a wreath?”; the narrator’s account of Cal, from “She tried to stare him down.” to “knock down her anthill.”; and the ending, from “He knew about how long it would take his brother” 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 narrator’s account of Cal. The chapter tells the reader Cal’s reason outright, then shows him at work on Abra in the same scene, and frames both boys with the anthill. Weigh whether the narrator’s explanation is fair to Cal, using the arrow, the secret and the kiss, the rain, Cal’s refusal of Abra’s offer, and the box in the road. Bring in Adam’s sudden wish to see Charles, his own fierce brother, as a second pair of brothers in the same chapter. Meet the strongest objection: perhaps the narrator explains too much, and a boy who “had forgotten—if he had ever known” is being judged by a reason he cannot see.

Discussion

1. 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

What it asks It asks the student to name what Cal is after in the argument over the rabbit. Standing over it, Cal says, “I’m going to say you did it,” and, “I won’t take credit. And I’ll say it was a hard shot.” Aron answers, “I don’t know as I want credit—not all of it,” and offers to say “we both shot together”. Cal asks “subtly”, “Don’t you want credit?” and then, “After all, it was my arrow,” pointing to a nick in the feathers. Aron says, “No, it wasn’t”, and asks, “How did it get in my quiver? I don’t remember any nick.” Cal answers, “Maybe you don’t remember. But I’m going to give you credit anyway.” Then he asks, “suppose Lee sees it was my arrow?” and warns, “He’ll think you’re lying.” Aron gives way: “If he thinks you shot it, why, we’ll just let him think that.” Cal says, “I just wanted you to know,” draws the arrow through the rabbit, puts it in his own quiver, and tells Aron, “You can carry him,” which the narrator says he said “magnanimously”. The student decides what Cal wanted Aron to say. It feeds the hinge: the chapter’s first gift is also its first quiet win, and it shows Cal’s pleasure at work before the narrator names it. The card must not settle who shot the rabbit; the page leaves it open.

A strong answer A strong response names what Cal wanted and grounds it. One reader says he wanted Aron to take the gift, so that Cal would be the generous one and Aron would owe him, and the narrator’s “magnanimously” marks the pose. Another says he wanted Aron to admit the arrow was his, and points out that Cal stops pressing the moment Aron says Lee may think Cal shot it. The best answers notice that every way out of the talk leaves Cal ahead, and they do not claim to know who shot the rabbit.

2. 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

What it asks It asks the student to judge what a half-denial leaves behind. On the walk home Cal says, “I know a secret”, and makes Aron promise not to tell. Then: “She ran away,” and “I heard some men talking.” Aron answers, “They were liars.” He says, “Father said she was in Heaven”, and repeats what Lee told him, “Your mother loved you and she still does.” Cal feels “pleasantly excited”: the secret is “the sharpest weapon he had found”, and he “could bring it out anytime”. When Aron flies at him, Cal cries, “I was just joking. Honest, Aron, it was only a joke.” He hugs and kisses him and says, “I won’t do it any more,” and soon Aron asks, “Did you really hear those men?” and Cal says quickly, “Maybe I only thought I did,” then, “Jesus, look at that cloud!” At home Aron hears a woman’s voice: “An emotion like a light had burst in Aron.” He wants to shout, “Maybe it’s our mother. Maybe she’s come back.” Then he remembers “that she was in Heaven and people do not come back from there.” The student decides what Cal’s answer leaves Aron believing. It feeds the hinge: Cal takes back the hurt in words while keeping the weapon. The card must not say where the twins’ mother is or whether Cal truly heard the men.

A strong answer A strong response says what Aron is left believing and grounds it. One reader says Aron is left with Heaven: Cal offers a way out, and in the house Aron uses it, reminding himself that people do not come back from there. Another says Aron is left with a doubt: “Maybe” takes back the words but not the idea, and the next woman’s voice he hears sets off a light in him. The best answers notice that both can be true at once, and they do not say where the mother is or whether Cal heard anything.

3. 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

What it asks It asks the student to compare the two joys the chapter names. All the way home there has been a contest. Cal claims, “I never feel cold”, asks, “Do you want to call me a liar?” and gets Aron to answer “I guess so” when he calls him scared. He tells the secret and takes it back. Then the storm comes, and the rain soaks them until “the turkey feathers at their temples bent over with the weight of water.” “There was no reason to run for cover. They looked at each other and laughed for joy.” Aron throws the rabbit to Cal, “And Cal, feeling silly, put it around his neck with the head and hind feet under his chin.” “Both boys leaned over and laughed hysterically”, and “the wind disturbed their high dignity.” In the old house the narrator explains Cal: “Out of revenge Cal extracted a fluid of power, and out of power, joy. It was the strongest, purest emotion he knew.” When Cal stares Abra down, “the sense of triumph at destroying Abra’s control made him laugh.” The student decides whether the joy in the rain is the same joy. It feeds the hinge: the word the chapter gives to what Cal gets from hurting people is the word it gives to the one easy moment between the brothers.

A strong answer A strong response decides whether the two joys are the same and grounds it in both scenes. One reader says they differ: in the rain nobody loses, the storm treats both boys alike, and Cal makes himself the joke, while the joy from power needs a victim who never knows how or why. Another says they are closer than they look: both times Cal laughs when someone’s dignity falls, once Abra’s at his hand and once the boys’ own in the wind. The best answers look at each time Cal laughs in the chapter, and they do not let the rain erase the hurt that came just before it.

4. 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

What it asks It asks the student to explain a sudden wish. The Bacons, caught by the rain, sit in Adam’s living room. Mr. Bacon asks about the land, and Adam admits, “I haven’t farmed it at all.” Mrs. Bacon is shocked that Lee has raised the boys, and Adam says, “now Lee is going away. I don’t know what we’ll do.” Mr. Bacon urges, “why don’t you rent it and move to the county seat—near our good public schools?” Adam studies the rug. “And for no reason at all that he could make out, his mind leaped to his father,” stumping on his wooden leg, drilling his sons and making them “carry heavy packs to develop their shoulders.” “Adam felt the pack loaded with rocks. He saw Charles’ face grinning sardonically—Charles—the mean, fierce eyes, the hot temper. Suddenly Adam wanted to see Charles. He would take a trip—take the boys.” He thinks, “Why not? I’m not running for supervisor.” Then he announces “that I have forgotten to write to my brother for over ten years.” The Bacons shudder, and Lee snorts happily in the hall. The student decides what pulls Adam toward a brother with mean eyes and a hot temper. It feeds the hinge: in the twins’ chapter a grown brother reaches back toward a hard brother, and the student can weigh what that says about hurt between brothers. The card must not say that Adam reaches Charles or what news of him comes.

A strong answer A strong response names the pull and grounds it. One reader says it is kinship: talk of sons and schools calls up Adam’s own boyhood, and Charles is the only other person who carried that pack of rocks. Another says it is a wish for something real: while Mr. Bacon arranges his land and his boys, Adam answers with his own past, and says so out loud. The best answers notice that Adam wants to see Charles in the same breath as he remembers the “mean, fierce eyes”, and they claim nothing about whether he reaches him.

5. 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

What it asks It asks the student to explain why Cal refuses what his brother accepts. In the old house Abra draws on her fairy tales: “does your father beat you?” and “Does your wicked stepmother hate you and want to kill you?” Aron says, “Our mother’s dead.” Abra starts a new story: “Little motherless orphans,” she says, “I’ll be your mother. I’ll hold you and rock you and tell you stories.” Cal answers, “We’re too big,” and, “We’d overset you.” “Abra looked away from his brutality. Aron, she saw, was caught up in her story. His eyes were smiling and he seemed almost to be rocking in her arms”. When the talk turns to the grave, “Cal’s eyes had a new interest, a gleaming interest that was close to triumph”, and he offers “naively” to ask their father where it is. Later the narrator says, “He knew she preferred his brother, but that was nothing new to him.” The student decides why Cal turns down what Aron takes. It feeds the hinge: the narrator says Cal wishes he could be loved as Aron is loved, and here Cal refuses a picture of being loved. The card must not say where the twins’ mother is.

A strong answer A strong response explains the refusal and grounds it. One reader says the offer was never Cal’s: Abra’s story is plainly for Aron, and refusing first spares Cal being rocked second. Another says Cal will not be made small: being mothered puts him under Abra’s control, so he breaks her story with a plain fact, which the narrator calls “brutality.” Some will point to the gleam “close to triumph” when the talk turns to the grave, and say Cal has a use for the mother that Abra’s story would spoil. The best answers keep both the hurt and the want in view, and say nothing about where the mother is.

Critical thinking

1. 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?

What it asks It asks the student to trace a cause through a close sequence. While Aron is gone to box the rabbit, Cal plans: “He could see in his mind what would happen.” He tells Abra that Aron is chasing something that “gets away”: “He caught it last Friday. It bit him too.” She will see, he says, “when you open the box”, and, “I bet he tells you not to open it right off.” “This was not a guess. Cal knew his brother.” Abra “began to hate this boy” and starts back toward the house. Cal follows: “Don’t be mad with me,” and, “You should see my brother’s back.” “All scars,” he says. “It’s the Chinaman.” “She shivered and tensed with interest.” Aron comes with the box tied “in fancy bow knots” and says, “Don’t untie it until you get home.” “Cal saw revulsion on Abra’s face. Her hands shrank away from the box.” Her father “thrust the box into her hands.” Cal whispers, “You’ve wet your pants,” and “She blushed and pulled the sunbonnet up over her head.” Mrs. Bacon lifts her into the buggy. “Before the first turn Abra’s hand came up and the box went sailing backward into the road.” The student writes a thesis on which of Cal’s three moves makes her throw the box, meets the strongest objection, and revises. It feeds the hinge: the box is the hurt that comes just before Cal’s last embrace, and the student sees how exactly Cal builds it. The card must not say what becomes of Abra or either twin later.

A strong answer A strong response builds a thesis, meets the strongest objection, and revises. One thesis says the thing that bites does it: revulsion crosses her face and her hands shrink from the box before Cal whispers anything. The strongest objection is the timing: she held on to the box all the way into the buggy and threw it only after the whisper made her blush and hide her face. A good revision might hold that the bite story made her want to be rid of the box and the whisper made her want to hurt back, so the throw does both at once. The best answers notice that Cal planned each step and that the box lands on Aron.

2. 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?

What it asks It asks the student to test the narrator’s claim against Cal’s own acts. The narrator says, “Nearly everyone preferred Aron with his golden hair and the openness that allowed his affection to plunge like a puppy. Cal’s emotions hid deep in him and peered out, ready to retreat or attack.” Cal “did not question the fact that people liked his brother better”. “Out of revenge Cal extracted a fluid of power, and out of power, joy. It was the strongest, purest emotion he knew.” “Far from disliking Aron, he loved him because he was usually the cause for Cal’s feelings of triumph.” And: “It had gone so far that he preferred what he had to what Aron had.” Yet Cal also calls, “Aron, wait for me!” and comes back with his arm around his brother: “Don’t be mad with me.” He says the same words to Abra just before the lie about the scars: “Don’t be mad with me,” and, “You don’t know what goes on here.” And in the old house he is the first to try to win her: “Sometimes we play here,” he says “boldly”, and then, “I’ll give you my rabbit”. Only after she touches Aron does the narrator say, “Abra had started a process in Cal by touching Aron and by the softness of her voice toward him.” The student writes a thesis on whether Cal’s own acts show he would trade what he has for what Aron has, meets the strongest objection, and revises. It feeds the hinge: if Cal truly prefers power, the wish to be loved is long buried; if he does not, it is still at work.

A strong answer A strong response builds a thesis, meets the strongest objection, and revises. One thesis says Cal would not trade: his best moments are wins, he shrugs off being less liked, and his laugh at Abra is real. The strongest objection is that Cal keeps reaching for love: he calls Aron back, asks him not to be mad, and tries to win Abra with a gift before he turns on her, and the sentence just before the claim says the punishing began in a wish to be loved. A good revision might hold that Cal prefers power the way a person prefers the only thing in reach, so the preference is real and also a cover.

3. 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?

What it asks It asks the chapter’s whole question. The narrator explains Cal: “He planned and waited until one time that admiring person exposed himself, and then something happened and the victim never knew how or why.” “He had forgotten—if he had ever known—that he punished because he wished he could be loved as Aron was loved.” Each hurt Cal gives Aron ends in an embrace. After the quarrel on the walk, Cal catches up, puts “his arm around his brother’s shoulders” and says, “Don’t be mad with me.” After the secret about their mother, “Cal came close to him and hugged him and kissed him on the cheek.” After the box, Cal “put his arm around his brother’s shoulders and hugged him reassuringly” and says, “Don’t be sad,” and, “I’m going to let you use my rifle.” Aron answers, “You haven’t got a rifle.” Cal says, “Haven’t I?” and then, “Haven’t I though?” Cal is eleven, “going on twelve.” The secret is “the sharpest weapon he had found”, and “He would inspect it at his ease and judge just when and how much to use it.” The student writes a thesis on whether knowing Cal’s reason makes him easier to forgive, meets the strongest objection, and revises. The card must not say where the twins’ mother is or whether Cal heard the men, must not say that Cal has a rifle, and must not say what becomes of Abra or either twin later.

A strong answer A strong response builds a thesis, meets the strongest objection, and revises. One thesis says the reason makes Cal easier to forgive: it is a hunger, not a hatred, he does not know it is there, and the embrace after each hurt shows the want breaking through. The strongest objection is that the reason explains only the start: Cal plans, waits, chooses his weapon at his ease, and enjoys it, and his victims never know enough to forgive him. A good revision might hold that knowing the reason makes Cal easier to understand and to pity, while forgiving him still needs someone who knows what he did.

Vocabulary definitions