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East of Eden
Mountaineers · 10th–12th
Lee gives up the bookstore he dreamed of for years and comes back to the Trasks. Has he lost his freedom, or found what he really wanted?
The tension Leaving, Lee says, “a clean cut heals soonest… If you can’t see or hear or touch a man, it’s best to let him go”; coming back on the ten-forty, he says, “I don’t want a bookstore,” and, “I am incomparably, incredibly, overwhelmingly glad to be home. I’ve never been so goddam lonesome in my life.”
Notice the different ways people say goodbye in this chapter, and what each goodbye hides or shows.
The chapter has two sections. In the first, Lee moves Adam and the twins to Salinas and settles them in Dessie’s little house, doing more than was needed and some of it only to put off the moment. One evening, cold and formal, he comes to Adam with a memorized speech of farewell. Adam guesses it before he can begin, and Lee admits he does not want to give it. He will leave the next day for San Francisco and, he says, his bookstore. Adam fears the news will be hard on the boys; Lee thinks they will surprise him. At breakfast they do. Cal asks to go to a ten-cent basketball game, Aron tells about a man on Main Street who sells sausages in buns, and Lee smiles at Adam from the kitchen door. When Adam says, “What little brutes!” Lee says he likes it better that way and hopes he is not small-souled enough to want to be missed. He leaves fifty cents for sausage buns. He will not promise to write: “They say a clean cut heals soonest.” He refuses Adam’s offer to walk him to the depot, says goodbye to Mr. Trask and to Adam, and is gone. In the second section, the twins eat five sausage buns each after the game, since Adam forgot supper, and on the walk home talk about Lee for the first time. Aron bets Cal ten cents that Lee will come back, because he will get lonesome. Six days later Lee comes in on the ten-forty with his own key and finds Adam scraping a burned pan; the beets are burned and the stove is choked with ashes. Lee takes over the kitchen, makes coffee in a skillet and pours his Chinese liquor into it. At last he says nothing happened to him: he got lonesome, and he does not want a bookstore. When Adam says his last dream is gone, Lee answers, “Good riddance.” He puts on a mock broken English, drinks, and tells Adam how glad he is to be home, and that he has never been so lonesome in his life.
Read the chapter yourself before the lesson; it is short. A few things it takes for granted. A telescope basket is a traveling case of two wicker halves, one sliding over the other. Ptomaine was the old word for food poisoning. Fan-tan is a Chinese gambling game. Ng-ka-py is a strong Chinese liquor, which Lee calls Chinese absinthe. The ten-forty is a train. Sam Hamilton, whose word about rotten apples Lee remembers, is Samuel, the old friend of both men, who has died. Lee’s one line of broken English mocks the speech once expected of a Chinese servant: “Missy Tlask, Chinee boy sink gung get dlunk.” Said straight, it means roughly, Mrs. Trask, the Chinese boy thinks he is going to get drunk. Treat it as Lee’s own choice at a moment of strain, and let the student decide what it covers rather than passing over it as only a joke. The chapter never says what happened to Lee in San Francisco; he says only that nothing did and that he got lonesome, so keep the talk there. Do not let the twins’ goodbye be read as proof that they do not care: Lee approves of it, and on the walk home Aron is sure Lee will come back. Nor let the burned pans become a lesson on Adam’s helplessness alone; they are what Lee chooses to come home to. Slow down three times: at breakfast, at the door, and at the table once the coffee is poured.
Retell The student tells the chapter back, from the move to Dessie’s house to Lee’s last words to Adam. Look for the goodbyes in order: the speech Lee does not give, the boys’ shouted “Good-by!”, the fifty cents, his doubt about writing, the two names at the door. Then the walk home and Aron’s bet, and the return: the key, the burned pan, the ashes, the coffee and the bottle, and what Lee finally says. Look for the six days kept straight and nothing added about San Francisco. Then ask which line the chapter turns on, and why.
Imitate the author After copying, the student writes a short speech in the manner of the first passage, about a parting they would rather not make a fuss over: one sentence of plain approval, a run of short sentences that each settle one point, one that turns on a dash, and a last, longer sentence that names a wish the speaker hopes not to have. Then two sentences in the manner of the second passage: one that piles three long words onto a single feeling, and one plain, blunt sentence that says a second feeling straight. Read them aloud beside Steinbeck’s and ask which sentence carries the weight.
Debate Take sides on the last written question. One side argues that Lee has lost his freedom. It gathers “They say a clean cut heals soonest.”; the bookstore given up within six days; “Good riddance” said “on the verge of hysteria”; the mock voice of a servant boy; and the burned pan and the stove he takes over the moment he walks in. The other side argues that he has found what he really wanted. It gathers “I think I knew it before I got on the train, but I took all this time to make sure.”; his own key; the “we” of the new gas stove; Aron’s “He’ll get lonesome for us”; and “incomparably, incredibly, overwhelmingly glad to be home.” Each side must answer the other’s strongest piece. Neither may say what happened in San Francisco, or that Lee will never want anything else.
Purpose Close on the chapter’s design. Its two sections mirror each other. The leaving is full of things held back: a speech not given, letters doubted, a walk to the depot refused. The return is full of things done before anything is said: a pan soaked, a fire built, coffee made. Between them, a ten-cent bet announces the return before Lee walks in. Ask why the chapter ends where it does, on gladness and loneliness in two sentences side by side, and what it leaves open about Lee’s dream. Name the habit the chapter practices: reading what people do beside what they say, and weighing which tells more.
Easier Read aloud together the evening talk and the breakfast, from “When do you want to go?” to the fifty cents and the ptomaine joke; the door, from “You’ll let us hear from you?” to the click of the front gate; and the whole return, from “Lee came in on the ten-forty” to the end. Talk through the first, second and fifth discussion questions, then answer the last written question aloud before writing it.
On level Talk through all six 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 on who serves whom in this chapter. Lee leaves with a speech that begins “For a number of years I have served you to the best of my ability” and comes back to a house where Adam “obeyed his orders.” Judge whether Lee returns as a servant, a friend or the head of the house, and what that does to the question of his freedom. Meet the strongest objection: Lee himself puts on the voice of a “Chinee boy” the moment he gives up his dream.
1. While the boys talk about a basketball game and sausage buns, Lee stands in the kitchen door, smiling at Adam. Why might their answer make him smile?Character
What it asks It asks the student to read Lee’s smile at breakfast, and to notice whom it is for. The night before, Adam feared the news “will tear the boys to pieces” and offered to tell them after Lee had gone. Lee answered that the boys would surprise him, and the narrator says, “And so it was.” He had also asked to go at once: “I’m afraid I might lose my intention if I don’t go soon.” At breakfast Cal asks about a basketball game that “costs ten cents,” and Aron tells of a man on Main Street who sells sausages in buns. “Lee stood in the kitchen door, smiling at Adam.” The smile is for the father, not the boys, and the chapter does not say what is in it.
He was right, and the smile is a joke shared with Adam. Adam expected tears; Lee said the boys would surprise him, and they have. The two men have raised the boys together for years, and the smile passes over the boys’ heads to the one person who will get the joke. It also tells Adam not to worry: the boys are fine.
It will tear the boys to pieces
And so it was.
Relief. Lee was afraid that if he waited he would not go at all, and he had stretched out the move with jobs done only to put off the moment. If the boys had cried, they might have given him the reason to stay. Their easy answer lets him go, and he smiles because the hardest part is over.
I’m afraid I might lose my intention if I don’t go soon.
and more things for the sake of delay
A strong answer A strong response says why the boys’ answer might make Lee smile, and grounds it in the talk the night before. One reader hears a joke shared with Adam: Adam feared the news would “tear the boys to pieces,” Lee said they would surprise him, “And so it was,” and the smile goes over the boys’ heads to the one man who will get it. Another hears relief: Lee was afraid he “might lose my intention,” and the boys’ easy answer lets him go. Some will hear a brave face as well. The best answers notice that the smile is for Adam, keep clear of deciding the twins do not care, and carry the question forward to whether the leaving was as easy as it looked.
2. Lee’s last words on his way out are “Good-by, Mr. Trask. Good-by, Adam.” Which of those two men is he leaving?Author's choice
What it asks It asks the student to hear the two goodbyes Lee says before he goes. Adam has just offered, “I’ll walk to the depot with you.” Lee answers sharply, “No. I don’t want that. Good-by, Mr. Trask. Good-by, Adam.” He goes so fast that Adam’s goodbye “reached him at the bottom of the front steps” and Adam’s “Don’t forget to write” sounds over the click of the gate. The evening before, Lee had come to Adam with “coldness and formality” and a memorized speech that began, “For a number of years I have served you to the best of my ability and now I feel—”. The first name belongs with that speech: it is what a servant calls his employer. The second is the name a friend uses.
He is leaving Mr. Trask. The first goodbye ends the service, the job the memorized speech was written for. The second is said to a man, not a master, and it does not end anything. That is why the parting never quite closes: Adam calls after him to write, and six days later Lee lets himself back in, home to Adam, with his own key.
For a number of years I have served you to the best of my ability
Lee came in on the ten-forty and let himself in with his own key.
He is leaving Adam, and that is the hard one. Leaving Mr. Trask costs little; the formal name and the formal manner were a kind of armor. The second goodbye is where the armor slips, and so he runs. He refuses the walk to the depot sharply and goes so fast that Adam’s goodbye has to chase him down the steps. The friend is the one he cannot bear to walk beside.
“No!” Lee said sharply.
He went out of the house so fast that Adam’s “Good-by” reached him at the bottom of the front steps
A strong answer A strong response decides which man Lee is leaving and grounds it in the scene at the door. One reader says he is leaving Mr. Trask: the first goodbye ends the service his speech was written for, and the second keeps the friend he lets himself back in to see six days later. Another says he is leaving Adam, the harder goodbye, which is why he refuses the walk to the depot “sharply” and goes so fast that Adam’s “Good-by” catches him on the steps. The best answers hear the two names as two bonds and carry the question forward to what Lee comes back to.
3. Walking home, Cal asks, “What do you suppose he’ll do without us?” Why does he wonder what Lee will do, and not what they will do?Inference
What it asks It asks the student to hear which way round the boys put their first talk about Lee. At breakfast they took the news with a basketball game and a sausage seller. That night they eat the ten buns Lee’s fifty cents bought, “and it was just as well, for Adam had forgotten to provide any supper.” Then: “Walking home, the twins discussed Lee for the first time.” Cal wonders why he went, and Aron says he has talked about going before. Cal asks, “What do you suppose he’ll do without us?” Aron answers, “I bet he comes back,” and, “He’ll get lonesome for us. You’ll see.” Neither boy says what they will do without Lee. At breakfast Lee had hoped they would think of him “sometimes—privately.”
It is the boys’ way of missing him without saying so. Lee himself wanted no show of sorrow, and boys their age would not give one. So they talk about Lee’s loss instead of their own. This is the private thinking Lee hoped for: no grown-up is listening, and his gift has just fed them on a night when no one else did.
Walking home, the twins discussed Lee for the first time.
Maybe they’ll think of me sometimes—privately.
It is what the boys believe about Lee. For as long as they can remember, his life has been the house and the people in it. They can picture him without them more easily than themselves without him, and Aron is sure he will be lonely. To the boys, Lee belongs to them, and they cannot see what he would do anywhere else.
What do you suppose he’ll do without us?
He’ll get lonesome for us. You’ll see.
A strong answer A strong response says why Cal asks what Lee will do without them, and not the other way round, and grounds it in the walk home. One reader hears the boys missing Lee without saying so: they talk about him for the first time when no grown-up is listening, which is the private thinking Lee hoped for, and they put the loss on him. Another hears what the boys believe about Lee: that his life is the house and the people in it, so he is the one who will be lonely, as Aron says, “He’ll get lonesome for us.” The best answers notice which way round the question goes, keep clear of deciding the twins do not care, and carry it forward to what Lee says when he comes back.
4. We learn that Aron won his ten-cent bet before we see Lee come back. Why put the bet first?Author's choice
What it asks It asks the student to notice where the chapter tells the outcome. On the walk home Aron says Lee will come back, Cal bets ten cents he won’t, “Before forever,” and Aron takes the bet. The next sentence is the narrator’s: “Aron was not able to collect his winnings for nearly a month, but he won six days later.” Only then: “Lee came in on the ten-forty and let himself in with his own key.” So the reader knows Lee is back, and that Aron was right, before Lee walks in. In the kitchen Lee takes a long while to say why. He soaks the pan, builds up the fire and makes coffee, and he agrees when Adam says he is “beating around the bush.” Only then does he say, “I got lonesome.”
It makes the return small and sure. A man coming back from his last dream could be a big scene; the chapter turns it into ten cents won by a boy, with a joke about Cal paying late. Lee would not give his farewell speech, and the chapter will not give him a grand homecoming either. The reader watches how he comes back, not whether.
Aron was not able to collect his winnings for nearly a month, but he won six days later.
Bet you ten cents he don’t.
It tells us why before Lee can. Aron bet that Lee would get lonesome, so when Lee walks in we already know his reason. What is left to watch is how hard it is for him to say it: the pan, the fire, the coffee and the bottle all come first. The order turns the scene into a wait for a confession we already know.
You’re beating around the bush
Nothing happened to me
A strong answer A strong response says why the chapter puts the bet first and grounds it in the order of the lines. One reader says it makes the return small and sure: the narrator turns it into ten cents won by a boy, with a joke about Cal paying late, and gives Lee no grand homecoming, just as Lee gave no farewell speech. Another says it tells us why before Lee can, so the kitchen scene becomes a wait for a confession we already know, through the pan, the fire and the coffee, until “I got lonesome.” The best answers say what the order takes away and what it adds, stay out of San Francisco, and carry the question forward: if a boy could win ten cents on the return, how free was the leaving, and how free is the coming back?
5. “If we had a new gas stove we could make a cup of coffee in a few minutes,” Lee says, before he has explained anything. What has he already told Adam?Character
What it asks It asks the student to read the first minutes of the return. Lee finds Adam scraping a burned frying pan with a can opener, and his first words are, “If you soak it overnight it will come right out.” Adam talks on about burned beets before he cries, “Lee!” and asks, “Is anything the matter?” Lee does not answer. He takes the pan, runs water in it, and says the line about the gas stove, then, “I might as well build up the fire.” He finds the stove choked with ashes, sends Adam out of the kitchen, and makes coffee in a skillet. Only later: “I forgot to ask whether you had replaced me.” Adam says, “You’re beating around the bush,” and Lee answers, “I know it.” The “we” comes before any explanation, and a new stove is a plan for days to come.
Everything. With “we” and a plan for a new stove, Lee says he is home to stay before he says why. He goes straight to work on the pan, the fire and the coffee, and the work is his answer to “Is anything the matter?” The house is his to plan for again. The words come later, but the news is in the first minute.
If we had a new gas stove we could make a cup of coffee in a few minutes
I might as well build up the fire.
Only the easy half. The “we” says he is back, but not why, and the why is the hard part. The pan, the fire and the coffee fill the place where it should go. Lee admits he is beating around the bush, and Adam still has to ask outright what happened. Lee needs the bottle before he can say the plain thing: he got lonesome.
I know it. And I also know the best way would be just to tell it and get it over with.
When do you think you’ll get around to telling me what happened to you?
A strong answer A strong response says what Lee has told Adam before he explains, and grounds it in the first minutes of the return. One reader says he has told him everything: “we” and a plan for a new stove say he is home to stay, and the work on the pan, the fire and the coffee answers “Is anything the matter?” Another says he has told only the easy half, that he is back and not why: the work fills the place of an explanation, Lee admits he is beating around the bush, and Adam must still ask what happened. The best answers catch the word “we”, say what is still unsaid, and treat the burned pan and the ashes as part of Lee’s choice rather than only a joke on Adam.
6. Just after giving up his last dream, Lee puts on broken English: “Missy Tlask, Chinee boy sink gung get dlunk.” What feeling is that voice covering?Tone
What it asks It asks the student to hear one sentence in a voice that is not Lee’s own. He has just said, “I don’t want a bookstore. I think I knew it before I got on the train, but I took all this time to make sure.” Adam answers, “Then there’s your last dream gone.” Lee: “Good riddance.” The narrator adds, “Lee seemed on the verge of hysteria.” Then the line, in the broken English of a caricature: a Chinese servant boy speaking to the lady of the house. Adam is alarmed: “What’s the matter with you anyway?” Lee drinks, and speaks as himself: “I am incomparably, incredibly, overwhelmingly glad to be home. I’ve never been so goddam lonesome in my life.” In the same chapter he can say, “There’s nothing sadder to me than associations held together by nothing but the glue of postage stamps.” The put-on voice is a choice.
Grief. He has just thrown away the last dream he had, and “Good riddance” is too brave to be true; the narrator says he seemed on the verge of hysteria. Mocking himself as a servant boy is a way to say, without saying it, what he fears he looks like for coming back. The joke is a wound.
Lee seemed on the verge of hysteria.
Then there’s your last dream gone.
Joy too large to say straight. Lee began the chapter with a memorized speech he did not want to give, and gladness this big embarrasses him too. The clowning covers it only for a moment. With the drink he gets to the plain words, and says them in his own voice: incomparably, incredibly, overwhelmingly glad. The mask is how he gets to the truth.
And it’s a pretty good speech too.
I am incomparably, incredibly, overwhelmingly glad to be home.
A strong answer A strong response names the feeling under the put-on voice and grounds it in the lines around it. One reader hears grief. “Good riddance” is too brave to be true, and the narrator says, “Lee seemed on the verge of hysteria.” He mocks himself as the servant boy he fears he looks like for coming back. Another hears joy too large to say straight, covered for a moment by the clowning, which ends in “incomparably, incredibly, overwhelmingly glad to be home.” The best answers treat the voice as Lee’s choice, notice whom it mocks, and ask whether it hid the feeling or led him to it.
1. Lee says, “I hope I’m not so small-souled as to take satisfaction in being missed.” Is it small-souled to want to be missed?
What it asks It asks the student to judge the principle Lee leaves by. At breakfast he says: “If they pretended sorrow they’d be liars. It doesn’t mean anything to them. Maybe they’ll think of me sometimes—privately. I don’t want them to be sad. I hope I’m not so small-souled as to take satisfaction in being missed.” Then he lays fifty cents in front of Adam: “give them this from me and tell them to buy the sausage buns.” Adam answers him later: “I’m going to miss you, Lee, whether you want me to or not.” Six days later Lee is the one who has done the missing: “I got lonesome. That’s all. Isn’t that enough?” Small-souled is a vocabulary word.
Yes, when the wish is for their pain. To take satisfaction in being missed is to want the people you love to hurt so that you can feel you mattered. Lee wants the boys spared, and he leaves them sausage buns instead of a scene. A large soul gives without asking to be paid back in grief.
I don’t want them to be sad.
give them this from me and tell them to buy the sausage buns
No. Wanting to be missed is wanting to matter, and the chapter shows Lee wants it too. He hopes the boys will think of him, if only privately, and he says the coins are “from me” when he hands them over. Six days later he is the one who could not bear the absence. His rule may be a guard against a hurt he did not want to feel, and the man who made it is back within a week.
Maybe they’ll think of me sometimes—privately.
I got lonesome. That’s all. Isn’t that enough?
A strong answer A strong response builds a thesis on whether wanting to be missed is small-souled, meets the strongest objection, and revises. One thesis agrees with Lee: to take satisfaction in being missed is to want the people you love to hurt. Lee says, “I don’t want them to be sad.” He leaves sausage buns instead of a scene. The strongest objection is that Lee wants it too. He hopes they will think of him “sometimes—privately.” He sends the coins “from me” and, six days later, is the one who could not bear the absence. A good revision might separate wanting to matter from wanting others to suffer, or ask whether Lee’s rule guarded him against a hurt he did not want to feel. The best answers say what “small-souled” means and keep to what the twins do, not to whether they care.
2. Lee gives up the bookstore he dreamed of for years and comes back to the Trasks. Has he lost his freedom, or found what he really wanted?
What it asks It asks the chapter’s whole question. Leaving, Lee will not promise to write: “They say a clean cut heals soonest. There’s nothing sadder to me than associations held together by nothing but the glue of postage stamps. If you can’t see or hear or touch a man, it’s best to let him go.” He refuses the walk to the depot and is gone. Six days later he lets himself in with his own key, takes over the burned pan and the choked stove, and at last says, “Nothing happened to me,” and then, “I got lonesome. That’s all. Isn’t that enough?” Of the bookstore: “I don’t want a bookstore. I think I knew it before I got on the train, but I took all this time to make sure.” Adam says, “Then there’s your last dream gone.” Lee answers, “Good riddance.” The narrator says he seemed on the verge of hysteria. He puts on broken English, drinks, and says, “I am incomparably, incredibly, overwhelmingly glad to be home. I’ve never been so goddam lonesome in my life.” The chapter never says what happened in San Francisco, and it ends on his gladness, not on what he may want later.
He has lost his freedom. The bookstore was a life of his own, and he gives it up in six days. He left with a rule for himself, a clean cut, and loneliness broke it without an argument. He calls the dream good riddance on the verge of hysteria and comes home to a burned pan and a stove full of ashes. A man who has to come back is not free.
They say a clean cut heals soonest.
Then there’s your last dream gone.
He has found what he wanted. He says he knew before he got on the train and spent the six days making sure, so the trip turned a habit into a choice. He walks in with his own key, plans a new stove with “we” and gives Adam orders. Freedom was never the bookstore; it was being able to choose where he belongs, and he chose.
I think I knew it before I got on the train, but I took all this time to make sure.
I am incomparably, incredibly, overwhelmingly glad to be home.
A strong answer A strong response builds a thesis, meets the strongest objection, and revises. One thesis says Lee has lost his freedom. He left with a rule, “They say a clean cut heals soonest.” Within six days loneliness undid it; the dream goes with a “Good riddance” said on the verge of hysteria, and he comes home to a burned pan. The strongest objection is that he chose. He says he knew before the train and took the days “to make sure.” He walks in with his own key, plans with “we” and calls himself “incomparably, incredibly, overwhelmingly glad to be home.” A good revision might say he lost one kind of freedom, to live alone on his own terms, and used another, to choose where he belongs; or that loneliness made the choice and gladness only followed it. The best answers keep both of his last two sentences in view, say nothing of what happened in San Francisco, and do not decide that Lee will never want anything else.
I hope I’m not so small-souled as to take satisfaction in being missed.”Petty; mean in spirit, wanting small things for oneself. It is the plain English opposite of magnanimous, which comes from the Latin for great-souled. Lee uses it of one wish: to take “satisfaction in being missed.” That would mean enjoying the thought of others feeling his absence. He says he hopes he is not that small; the word names the standard he holds himself to.
“Adam,” he said, “I am incomparably, incredibly, overwhelmingly glad to be home.Beyond any comparison; so far past the usual that nothing can be set beside it. In- means not, and comparable means able to be compared. It is the first of the three words Lee piles onto the plain word glad, and each claims something different: incredibly says the gladness is hard to believe, overwhelmingly that it is too much to hold, and incomparably that nothing else measures up to it.