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East of Eden
Mountaineers · 10th–12th
Tom and Dessie each put on high spirits to lift the other. Can gladness that is put on for someone else still heal them?
The tension Tom cries, “I’ll breathe life into life again… This house is going to be alive,” and Dessie answers “I’m glad I came” while thinking “how brittle he was now and how easy to shatter”; a moment later she asks herself, “If his is real, why can’t my heart be light?” and asks for “a purple egg.”
Notice what Tom and Dessie each do to lift the other, and what each one sees, and keeps back, under the joy.
The chapter has two sections. First, the narrator says Dessie was the warm-beloved of the Hamiltons, whose gaiety spread to people so that they carried it away with them. He shows it through Agnes Morrison of Church Street, Salinas: on the days she goes to Dessie’s for a fitting, her husband’s store does well, the young Morrisons are no trouble, supper never fails, and the couple go to bed happy, and the good mood can last two days more. Dessie was not beautiful, but she had a glow. She never got over her first love affair, and she went on as before, without the glow. The people who loved her ached for her and tried for her, then found good reasons to stay away, and her dressmaking fell off as ready-made dresses came in. She admitted only to short, fierce pains in her side. Then Samuel died. Dessie decided to sell up and go to live with Tom on the ranch. Will, who had not been told, left Adam at the San Francisco Chop House and came to her house. He told her three times that he did not want her to go: she had a nice business, it was too lonely, and Tom was strange, broody, walking the hills at night and writing poetry. Dessie said she had written pages of poetry too, that she had lost something and wanted to find it again, and asked him to let her decide. He left angrily. Second, Tom, polished and in new clothes, meets her at King City. They greet each other as strangers, dance and sing on the platform, and drive south behind horses with red ribbons in their manes. On the road Tom rages at Will, and Dessie turns the talk to their mother, who cried a little at her leaving. They talk of Adam, who is buying her house at the high price she meant to be argued down from, and of the fun the family used to have. On the ranch road every bush carries a “Welcome Home” card, and on the hill whitewashed stones spell “Welcome Home, Dessie.” Tom says he did not do it. At dawn Dessie wakes with the pain. As it eases, she hears the morning and the pigeons, and remembers Samuel getting white pigeons though Rabbit warned they bring sadness and death, and Liza calling him a mule of contention. The house seems to fill with Hamiltons, then empty. The narrator says Tom’s cowardice is as huge as his courage, and that Dessie can hold his bit and point him. She finds the house scrubbed, as a man scrubs it. Tom comes in with wood, whistling. She says he sounds like his father, and he vows to bring the house to life; she says she is glad she came and thinks how brittle he is, and how she must protect him. He talks of inventions and millions of chickens; she asks for breakfast. Wondering why her heart cannot be light if his joy is real, she tells herself that she will climb out of her gray ragbag, and asks him for a purple egg.
Read the chapter yourself first, and slow down twice: at the Morrison pages, from “I can put it this way” to “she was the beloved of the family”, and at the last scene, from Tom’s whistle to the purple egg. Some background the chapter assumes. Samuel Hamilton, the head of the family, has recently died; Liza is his widow. Tom, Will, George, Joe, Dessie, Olive, Mollie and Una are their sons and daughters. Tom has stayed on alone at the family’s dry ranch near King City, which he calls “Old Dry and Dusty.” Will is the brother who does well in business. Adam Trask, a friend of the family, is moving to Salinas so his twin sons can go to school there. The narrator is a Hamilton grandson. A drummer is a traveling salesman; a fitting is a dressmaker’s appointment. Dessie’s “some goat-foot with a wheat flute on a hill in Greece” is Pan, the Greek god of the wild who played pipes. Squabs are young pigeons. The chapter mentions in one line that Tom once cut Mollie’s tongue with his pocketknife; take it as the chapter gives it. Four things the chapter does not settle, and the guide does not either: what the pain in Dessie’s side is, or where it leads; who Dessie loved, or why it ended; whether Will is right to fear for Dessie alone with Tom; and whether the white pigeons mean anything beyond Dessie’s memory. A reader who knows what comes later may read the chapter as a countdown. Keep the delight of the homecoming at full strength, and let the friends who “got to trying for her” at the start be heard against Tom and Dessie trying for each other at the end.
Retell The student tells the chapter back from Dessie, “the warm-beloved,” to the purple egg. Look for the two sections in order, and for the turns that carry them: the Morrison house on a good day, and the headaches coming back; the glow lost, and the friends who tried, then stayed away; the pains in her side; Samuel’s death, when “the world shattered like a dish”; Will’s “I don’t want you to go” and Dessie’s “I’ve lost something”; the station, the ribbons and the stranger game; Dessie forcing a change of subject; the cards and the stones, and Tom’s denial; the pain at dawn, the pigeons, the house filling with Hamiltons and emptying; Tom’s vow and Dessie’s thought that he is brittle; the inventions, the breakfast and the purple egg. Look for restraint about the pain. Then ask which sentence the student would keep, and why.
Imitate the author After copying, the student writes four sentences in the manner of the first passage, about a good thing that wears off: a long sentence that lets it drain away with and after and; a sentence of two balanced halves; a sentence that ties the person to someone who came before; and a sentence that says one thing twice with only a comma between. Then five sentences in the manner of the second, about a group of people who stop doing something kind: a sentence that sets two pairs against each other; a sentence that turns one person into a kind of person by putting the name in the plural; a verdict of three words; a sentence that measures one want against another with as much as; and a closing sentence that turns from they to you and states a rule for everyone. Read both aloud beside Steinbeck’s and ask where the narrator’s judgment shows without being stated.
Debate Take sides on the last written question. One side argues that gladness put on for someone else can heal. It gathers the Morrison house on a fitting day; Tom’s “Makes me feel I’m well from a sickness”; the cards and the stones; Dessie’s “I will” and the purple egg, a joke the old Dessie would have made. The other side argues that it cannot heal by itself. It gathers the charge that “petered out”; the friends who “got to trying for her” and then stayed away; “His joy hardened to fierceness”; “brittle”; and the pain at dawn, which comes whatever either of them feels. Each side must answer the other’s strongest piece. Neither may say what the pain is or what comes next.
Purpose Close on the chapter’s design. Steinbeck opens by measuring Dessie’s glow in one ordinary house, and ends with her trying to make it again with a joke about an egg. Between, he lets one word return: the world “shattered like a dish” when Samuel died, and Dessie sees Tom as “easy to shatter”. He fills the road with “Welcome Home,” and then fills the house at dawn with Hamiltons who are not there. He gives the barnyard “a blue jay’s squawk of false excitement” and a hen who “hypocritically protested”, on the morning two people put on high spirits for each other, and leaves the reader to decide whether that is a joke, a hint, or both. Ask why the chapter ends on the purple egg and not on the pain. Name the habit the chapter practices: watching what people do to lift each other, and asking how far that lifting can reach.
Easier Read aloud the Morrison pages from “I can put it this way” to “they got to trying for her”; the road home, from “What’s the card on that mesquite bush?” to “A man can’t leave the place any more”; and the last scene, from “From outside came a whistle” to the end. Talk through the first and fourth discussion questions, then answer the last written question aloud before writing it.
On level Talk through all five discussion questions in order, then write both written questions as a thesis, the strongest objection and a revised thesis, each with lines from the chapter.
Harder Ask for one argued essay: does the chapter trust the homecoming, or test it? Set the Morrison house, where gladness lasts “two days more,” beside the ranch, where Tom vows, “This house is going to be alive.” Meet the strongest objection to your side. Against trust stand Dessie’s thought that Tom is “brittle” and the pain at dawn. Against testing stands the station agent, the one onlooker in the chapter, who sees only joy: “Those Hamiltons! Just look at them!”
1. The narrator guesses three times at what Dessie did to make Agnes laugh. Then he says, “It didn’t matter.” What did matter?Theme
What it asks It asks the student to find where the narrator puts Dessie’s gift, once he has said that her methods do not matter. He opens, “I can put it this way,” and never shows Dessie with Agnes. Three times he guesses: “Maybe all Dessie had done was to put several black pins in a cushion to make it look like the Baptist minister”; maybe a story about Old Man Taylor; maybe “a poem from Chatterbox with gestures.” Then: “It didn’t matter. It was warm-funny, it was catching funny.” Instead of the visit he gives what follows it: Agnes laughing “all over again” on the walk home, the young Morrisons home from school to “no aches, no carping, no headache”, Mr. Morrison listened to, the supper, the “old, old signal”, and a drummer who gets “a good order.” The chapter opens on “the gaiety that colored a day and spread to people so that they carried it away with them.” A few paragraphs later Dessie loses her glow and goes “right on doing and being what she was—without the glow”, and the visits stop.
Dessie herself. What she did could be anything, because the gift was in her: the twinkle, the laughter “infectious as chickenpox.” Any pincushion would have done. The proof comes a few paragraphs later. She goes on doing the same things without the glow, and they no longer work. The doing never mattered. The glow did.
Hers was the twinkle and the laughter infectious as chickenpox
She went right on doing and being what she was—without the glow.
What people carried home. The narrator does not follow Dessie; he follows Agnes. He measures the gift where it lands: in young Morrisons whose noise is “not a scandal”, a stew, a good order, a marriage bed. Dessie starts it, but the gladness is “catching”, and once it is caught it belongs to the Morrisons. That is why the methods do not matter. What matters is that the gladness travels.
It was warm-funny, it was catching funny.
And any drummer who did come by was likely to get a good order.
A strong answer A strong response says what mattered and grounds it in the Morrison pages. One reader says the gift was in Dessie herself: the methods could be anything because the glow did the work, and when she goes on “without the glow” the same doing fails. Another says it was in what the Morrisons carried home: the narrator follows Agnes, not Dessie, and measures the gift in a supper, a good order and a marriage, because the gladness is “catching.” The best answers notice that the narrator does not know what happened at the fitting, and that the question comes back at the ranch, where two people try to give each other gladness on purpose.
2. The narrator says the friends “weren’t disloyal.” Do you believe him?Tone
What it asks It asks the student to hear the narrator’s tone in one paragraph. After her first love affair Dessie went on “without the glow”, and “The people who loved her ached for her, seeing her try, and they got to trying for her.” Then: “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” to stay away. “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.” The next paragraph adds that the women “never realized that what they had wanted was happiness”, and that once Mr. Morrison stocked ready-mades, “it was only reasonable” for Agnes to be seen in them.
Yes, he means it. The friends tried first, and it hurt them to watch: they “ached for her.” He calls them “good and loyal” before he says they were human. His last sentence turns from they to you, so it takes in the narrator and the reader too. He is not mocking the friends. He is saying that anyone would have done the same.
The people who loved her ached for her, seeing her try, and they got to trying for her.
Dessie’s friends were good and loyal but they were human, and humans love to feel good and they hate to feel bad.
Not quite. The words are too grand for the deed. Reasons called “unassailable”, a “logical and virtuous” reason, a dress it is “only reasonable” to wear: each fine word dresses up staying away from a sad friend. The narrator lets the excuses speak in their best voice. Then his last sentence says what they are for: not doing what you don’t want to do.
It is easy to find a logical and virtuous reason for not doing what you don’t want to do.
If Mr. Morrison was stocking ready-mades, it was only reasonable that Agnes Morrison should be seen in them.
A strong answer A strong response takes a view of the narrator’s tone and grounds it in the paragraph. One reader believes him: the friends ached and tried first, he calls them “good and loyal”, and his last sentence turns to “you”, as if anyone would do the same. Another hears a judgment under the defense: the reasons are “unassailable”, “logical and virtuous”, “only reasonable”, and the closing rule calls them reasons for not doing what you don’t want to do. The best answers notice that he may mean both, and that the friends who “got to trying for her” are the first people in the chapter to put on gladness for someone else.
3. 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
What it asks It asks the student to read one line of Dessie’s in the scene where Will tries to stop her. Will has not been told her plan; he “frothed inwardly” at the San Francisco Chop House and walked the half-block to her house. He says “I don’t want you to go” three times, and his reasons change: “You’ve got a nice business here,” then “It’s too lonely down there”, then “Tom’s not himself. You shouldn’t be alone with him.” Tom is “broody”, Will says, and “goes walking alone in the hills at night”, and has “been writing poetry—pages of it all over the table.” Dessie asks, “Didn’t you ever write poetry, Will?” He answers, “I did not.” She says, “I have,” and then, “Pages and pages of it all over the table.” Soon after: “I’ve lost something. I want to try to find it again.” Earlier she gave another reason for going: “Tom’s lonely down there.”
Standing up for Tom. Will thinks the poems prove that something is wrong. Dessie hands his own words back to him, almost as a joke, to show how little they prove. If she writes poems too, Tom is not strange. Her question teases the brother who never wrote a line. She has always known how to make people laugh.
Didn’t you ever write poetry, Will?
Will, you’ve always thought he was strange.
Telling Will about herself. She repeats his words and adds “Pages and pages”. A few lines later she says she has lost something. If Tom’s poems are a sign of grief, so are hers. She is not saying Tom is well. She is saying the two of them are alike, and that is why she should go.
Pages and pages of it all over the table.
I’ve lost something. I want to try to find it again.
A strong answer A strong response reads the line and grounds it in the scene. One reader says Dessie stands up for Tom: she turns Will’s proof into a joke and teases the brother who never wrote a poem. Another says she is telling Will about herself: she adds “Pages and pages”, and a few lines later says, “I’ve lost something.” The best answers notice that both can be true at once, and leave Will’s fear about Tom as open as the chapter leaves it.
4. 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
What it asks It asks the student to read a game two people play on the road home. At the station Tom is “burnished”, with red ribbons in the horses’ manes, and “He tried to conceal his excitement by clasping his rough brown hands in front of him.” On the ranch road Dessie finds a card on a mesquite bush that says “Welcome Home.” She cries, “Tom, you did it!” He answers, “I did not. Someone’s been here.” Every fifty yards there is another card, and “Dessie squealed with delight over each one.” On the hill whitewashed stones spell “Welcome Home, Dessie.” She puts her head against his lapel and laughs and cries at the same time. Tom looks “sternly ahead of him” and says, “Now who could have done that?” and “A man can’t leave the place any more.” She does not argue again. The same kind of game began at the station, with “I beg your pardon, stranger,” and “Aren’t you Dessie Hamilton? I seem to remember you.”
A cover for a feeling too big to say. Tom has hidden his feeling all day. He clasps his hands to hide his excitement, and on the hill he looks stern while his sister laughs and cries against his coat. If he owned the cards, he would have to own how much he wanted her back. The denial lets him give everything and admit nothing. And Dessie can take the gift as pure delight, with nothing to thank him for.
He tried to conceal his excitement by clasping his rough brown hands in front of him.
Tom looked sternly ahead of him.
The old family game. The pretending began at the station, where they meet as strangers and he asks where her pigtails are. This is the Hamilton fun Dessie asks about on the road. Playing it is the point. By keeping the joke going, both of them bring back the family as it was before Samuel died, for one afternoon.
Aren’t you Dessie Hamilton? I seem to remember you. But you’ve changed. Where are your pigtails?
Have you ever known any family that had more fun?
A strong answer A strong response names what each one gains and grounds it in the road home. One reader says the denial covers a feeling too big to say: Tom has hidden his excitement since the station, he looks “sternly” ahead while Dessie laughs and cries, and the joke lets him give without confessing how much he needed her back. Another says the pretending is the point: it is the game they began at the station, the Hamilton fun Dessie asks about on the road, and playing it brings the old family back for an afternoon. The best answers keep the delight at full strength, and notice that both of them keep the game going.
5. 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
What it asks It asks the student to take up an old argument at the Hamilton table, which Dessie remembers at dawn as the pain eases. Rabbit warned that white pigeons “bring sadness and death.” Samuel: “And as the sky covers me, I’ll get white ones.” Liza: “Gray ones taste just as good and they’re bigger.” Samuel: “I’ll let no flimsy fairy tale push me”. Liza, “with her dreadful simplicity”: “You’re already pushed by your own contentiousness. You’re a mule of contention, a very mule!” Samuel, “sullenly”: “Someone’s got to do these things”. “Else Fate would not ever get nose-thumbed and mankind would still be clinging to the top branches of a tree.” The narrator: “And of course he got white pigeons and waited truculently for sadness and death until he’d proved his point.” Their great-great-grand squabs now fly “like a whirling white scarf around the wagon shed.” Dessie thinks, “Sadness and death,” and “You just have to wait around long enough and it will come.” At breakfast Tom vows, “I’ll breathe life into life again.”
Samuel. His refusal is a kind of freedom. He will not let a fear decide for him, and he says why: without people who thumb their noses at Fate, we would still be up in the trees. He waits for sadness and death, and proves his point. The white birds still fly at the ranch. Tom’s vow to bring the house to life is the same refusal.
Else Fate would not ever get nose-thumbed and mankind would still be clinging to the top branches of a tree.
And here were the great-great-grand squabs cooing in the morning and rising to fly like a whirling white scarf around the wagon shed.
Liza. A man who must do the opposite of a warning is still steered by it. Samuel waits “truculently”, watching for the very thing he says he does not fear. And the warning outlives his victory: Dessie, lying in pain, hears the words, not the proof.
You’re already pushed by your own contentiousness.
Sadness and death, she thought, and death and sadness
A strong answer A strong response takes a side in the old argument and grounds it in the memory. One reader sides with Samuel: he will not let a fear decide for him, the birds still fly, and Tom’s vow to “breathe life into life again” is the same refusal. Another sides with Liza: a man who must defy a warning is still steered by it, and he waits “truculently” for what he says he does not fear. The best answers keep the pigeons from causing anything, and notice that Dessie, in pain, remembers the warning word for word.
1. 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?
What it asks It asks the student to weigh the narrator’s picture of Dessie and Tom against her own plea to Will. In San Francisco Will says “I don’t want you to go” three times. She answers, “Let me decide,” and then, with her arms around his neck, “Dear brother, please let me decide.” On the road Tom rages at Will for judging him: “If I don’t want to live his kind of life I’m crazy—just crazy.” Dessie calms him, “Gently, gently,” and when he flares again she “changed the subject, forced the change.” At dawn, in her half-sleep, the narrator says “Tom’s cowardice was as huge as his courage, as it must be in great men,” and “He was confused now, but Dessie could hold his bit and point him, the way a handler points a thoroughbred at the barrier to show his breeding and his form.” In the kitchen she says “I’m glad I came” and keeps to herself the thought “how she would have to protect him.” When he starts to draw a conveyor belt for millions of chickens, she says, “I want to draw some breakfast.” In the last lines it is Tom’s joy that moves her: “If he can—I will.”
Yes. Steering is not stopping. Will tried to stop Dessie; Dessie never stops Tom. She cools his anger, turns the talk, and aims his wild plans at breakfast, but she lets the whistle, the chickens and the vow run. A handler points a horse “to show his breeding and his form”: she points Tom at his best self. He is “confused now,” and she sees how easily he could break. To leave him unsteered would be the friends’ way, finding a good reason to stay out of it.
He was confused now, but Dessie could hold his bit and point him, the way a handler points a thoroughbred at the barrier to show his breeding and his form.
I want to draw some breakfast
Not without a cost. Dessie claimed the right to decide for herself, and Tom hates being managed as much as she did. Steering a man she thinks is brittle means keeping things from him. She forces the change of subject. She says she is glad she came and thinks something else. A handler stands outside the race, and Dessie is not outside it: she is grieving too.
please let me decide
If I don’t want to live his kind of life I’m crazy—just crazy.
A strong answer A strong response says whether Dessie should steer Tom, meets the strongest objection, and revises. One thesis says she should: Tom is “confused now,” and her steering is gentle. She cools his anger and aims his plans at breakfast without stopping him, the way a handler points a horse to show its form. The strongest objection is her own plea to Will, “please let me decide,” and Tom’s rage at being judged by Will’s kind of life: steering a person means deciding for him, and it makes her keep her thoughts to herself. A good revision might say that steering is love when it points someone where he already wants to go, as Dessie points Tom toward the life he vows to bring back, and control when it holds him back, as Will tried with her. Or it might notice that by the last lines Tom’s joy is steering her: “If he can—I will.” The best answers test the narrator’s picture against the scenes, and claim nothing about the pain or about whether Will is right.
2. Tom and Dessie each put on high spirits to lift the other. Can gladness that is put on for someone else still heal them?
What it asks It asks the chapter’s whole question. Dessie once spread gladness without trying; the Morrisons carried it home for “two days more”. When her glow went, the people who loved her “got to trying for her”, then found reasons to stay away. She tells Will, “I’ve lost something. I want to try to find it again.” Tom polishes his shoes, braids red ribbons into the horses’ manes, and puts “Welcome Home” on bush after bush, then denies it. On the road, “Dessie changed the subject, forced the change.” Tom says her coming “Makes me feel I’m well from a sickness.” At dawn she wakes in pain, and the house fills with absent Hamiltons and the words “sadness and death.” Tom vows, “I’ll breathe life into life again.” She answers, “I’m glad I came,” and thinks how brittle he is, “and how she would have to protect him.” Then she asks herself, “If his is real, why can’t my heart be light?”, decides, “If he can—I will”, and asks for “a purple egg.”
Yes, it can. The chapter’s first pages show gladness doing real good, a sale, a supper, a marriage, even when it wears off. Tom feels “well from a sickness” before Dessie has done anything but arrive. And put-on gladness turns real in her: seeing his, she decides “I will,” and the purple egg is the old Dessie’s kind of joke. Acting glad for someone else is how she starts back.
Makes me feel I’m well from a sickness.
I will, she screeched inside herself. If he can—I will.
Not by itself. Willed gladness can lift, but the chapter shows what it cannot reach. The Morrisons’ glow ran out. Dessie’s friends tried for her and then stayed away. Tom’s joy hardens to fierceness, and Dessie sees him as brittle. The pain comes at dawn whatever either of them feels, and she says nothing of it. Each is carrying the other, and no one is carrying them.
The people who loved her ached for her, seeing her try, and they got to trying for her.
In the dawn Dessie was awakened by the chill of pain that came to her at intervals.
A strong answer A strong response builds a thesis, meets the strongest objection, and revises. One thesis says put-on gladness can heal: Tom feels “well from a sickness” the moment Dessie comes, and his joy wakes hers, so that she decides “I will” and makes the old kind of joke. The strongest objection is that the chapter shows what willed gladness cannot reach: the Morrisons’ glow ran out, the friends who tried for Dessie gave up, Dessie sees Tom as “brittle”, and the pain comes at dawn whatever they feel. A good revision might say that gladness put on for another can mend the grief between two people, but not what each of them carries alone. The best answers keep the real delight of the homecoming, and leave the pain as unexplained as the chapter does.
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”.
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.
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”.