East of Eden

Chapter 32

John Steinbeck · Mountaineers 10th–12th

Teaching Companion Print Adapt for your student

Copywork

The visit to Dessie might carry its charge into two days more before it petered out and the little headaches came back and business was not so good as last year. That’s how Dessie was and that’s what she could do. She carried excitement in her arms just as Samuel had. She was the darling, she was the beloved of the family.

Dessie’s friends were good and loyal but they were human, and humans love to feel good and they hate to feel bad. In time the Mrs. Morrisons found unassailable reasons for not going to the little house by the bakery. They weren’t disloyal. They didn’t want to be sad as much as they wanted to be happy. It is easy to find a logical and virtuous reason for not doing what you don’t want to do.

Read the first passage aloud. Its first sentence runs on with “and” after “and”. What happens to your voice as the good day runs out?

For the educator Both passages measure Dessie’s gift by what happens when it is gone, and both are worth copying for the way a judgment sits inside a plain description. The first has four sentences. The first sentence runs on with and after and: the charge “petered out” (a vocabulary word), the headaches came back, business was not so good, so the good day drains away inside one sentence. The second is two balanced halves, “That’s how Dessie was and that’s what she could do.” The third ties her to her father with “just as Samuel had.” The fourth says one thing twice with only a comma between, “She was the darling, she was the beloved”, and ends the Morrison pages on the words the chapter began with, “the beloved of the family.” The second passage has five sentences. The first sets pairs against each other: “good and loyal” against “human,” and “love to feel good” against “hate to feel bad.” The second turns one woman into a kind of person by putting her name in the plural, “the Mrs. Morrisons”, and gives their reasons a grand word, unassailable (a vocabulary word). The third is three words long, a verdict. The fourth measures one want against another with “as much as”. The fifth turns from they to you and states a rule for everyone. For the talk prompt, some will slow down and let the voice drop as the good day runs out; some will speed up, as if the losses come too fast to stop; some will hear the voice lift again in the last two sentences. Leave it open.

Discussion

Narration Tell the chapter back, from Dessie, “the warm-beloved,” to her purple egg. Then choose the one sentence you would keep if you could keep only one, and say why.

The narrator guesses three times at what Dessie did to make Agnes laugh. Then he says, “It didn’t matter.” What did matter? Theme
The narrator says the friends “weren’t disloyal.” Do you believe him? Tone
Will says Tom is strange. Tom has been writing poetry, “pages of it all over the table.” Dessie says she has written it too. Is she standing up for Tom, or telling Will something about herself? Character
Tom says twice that he had nothing to do with the welcome. Dessie knows he did. What does each of them get out of the pretending? Inference
Samuel won’t let Rabbit’s warning about white pigeons push him around. Liza tells him, “You’re already pushed by your own contentiousness.” Who is right? Moral reasoning

Make a Connection Think of someone, in a book or in your own life, who could make a whole room laugh. When that person’s laughter stops, what do the people around them owe them?

Vocabulary

unassailable: In time the Mrs. Morrisons found unassailable reasons for not going to the little house by the bakery. So strong that no one can attack or argue with it. It is built from assail, to attack, with un- in front. Said of a reason, it means one that no one could fault. The narrator gives the friends’ reasons the grandest word in the paragraph, and three sentences later he calls such reasons “logical and virtuous”.
petered: The visit to Dessie might carry its charge into two days more before it petered out and the little headaches came back and business was not so good as last year. Used with out: to fade away little by little until nothing is left. A stream that peters out gets thinner and thinner and then is gone. The narrator uses it for the good mood a fitting with Dessie leaves in the Morrison house: it does not stop all at once; it runs down. The word gives the chapter’s first measure of how long gladness lasts.
contentiousness: You’re already pushed by your own contentiousness. A habit of arguing and picking fights, of taking the other side because it is the other side. It comes from contend, to fight or compete. Samuel says he will let no fairy tale push him; Liza turns his own word back on him. Contentiousness pushes too, she says. In the next breath she calls him “a mule of contention”.

Critical thinking

Dessie asks Will to let her decide for herself. At dawn the narrator says she “could hold his bit and point him,” the way a handler steers a racehorse. Should she steer Tom?
Tom and Dessie each put on high spirits to lift the other. Can gladness that is put on for someone else still heal them?