Chapter 4 — Teaching Companion

This chapter's big question

In his letter Charles says that if their father had liked the knife, he would not have gone after Adam. Is the letter an apology to Adam, or an excuse Charles makes to himself?

The tension On the night of the beating Charles laughs with strangers at the inn and buys their drinks, rubbing his split knuckles; years later, alone in the kitchen until dawn, he writes “I had to take out after you” and “It’s me should be where you are and you here.”

Today's focus

On the night of the beating Charles drinks with strangers while Cyrus hunts him with a shotgun. Adam is sworn into the cavalry from his sickbed, turns against all hurting in five years as a soldier, and comes to know his brother only by mail, above all through one unsigned letter.

The shape at a glance

The chapter has two numbered parts. In the first, on the night he beat Adam, Charles stands at the bar of the village inn laughing at the stories of stranded drummers (traveling salesmen), buys them drinks with what little silver he has, rubs his split knuckles, and goes off with them. Cyrus searches the road and the inn for him; the narrator says he would probably have killed him, and reflects that every act, down to a stone stepped over in a path, bends history. Told that his father is looking for him with a shotgun, Charles hides for two weeks, then comes home to overwork and a show of humility. Adam lies in bed for four days. On the third, Cyrus brings a cavalry captain and two sergeants into his bedroom, and Adam is sworn in as a private while his father’s eyes fill with tears. Cyrus tells him there is fighting coming in the Indian country, and Adam says, “Yes, sir.” In the second part the narrator follows Adam through five years as a cavalryman. He hates violence more and more and fires to miss. His officers suspect him of malingering, yet he does more work than anyone, risks his life to bring in wounded men, volunteers in field hospitals, and is commended three times and decorated for bravery. The narrator calls his horror of hurting a prejudice that shuts out thought. Charles writes regularly: farm news, Alice’s death from consumption, their father’s paid post with the G.A.R. in Washington. Through the letters the brothers grow closer than they have ever been. Adam keeps one. It opens with jokes and farm talk; then the pen breaks, and Charles goes on in pencil, late at night in the kitchen. The house seems to watch him, and his mother’s rocking chair seems to creak. He asks why their father did not like the knife he gave him, writes “If he’d liked it I wouldn’t have took out after you,” feels that something is unfinished, and says he should be where Adam is. Dawn comes. The letter is unsigned. Adam keeps it, and it chills him each time he reads it.

A way in

Before reading, ask the student whether it is easier to say a hard thing aloud or to write it, and why. Then read part 1 and stop at “Yes, sir.” Ask the student to hold two pictures side by side: Charles grinning at the inn, Adam signing the Articles of War in bed. Read part 2 up to the letter, then read the letter aloud, slowing where the pen breaks and again where the words begin to race. Stop at the last line. The chapter does not say whether Charles meant to send the letter or what Adam wrote back, and the guide does not guess.

Lesson plan

Retell The student retells the chapter in its two parts: the inn, Cyrus’s search, Charles’s two weeks in hiding and the swearing-in at Adam’s bedside; then Adam’s five years as a soldier, Charles’s letters, and the one letter Adam keeps, from the farm news to dawn. Look for sequence, for the place where the pen breaks, and for Charles’s exact words about the knife.

Imitate the author After copying, the student writes a short paragraph of their own about two people after the same event. One sentence strings three actions together with “and,” in the pattern of “stood and grinned and rubbed.” One ends on a short, flat clause after a comma, like “and he didn’t care.” One repeats a small word three times, in the pattern of “any hurt on anything for any purpose.”

Debate Take sides on the last written question. One side argues that the letter is an apology, and gathers its address to Adam, the double “I want to say,” the change after the pen breaks, and “It’s me should be where you are and you here.” The other argues that it is an excuse Charles makes to himself, and gathers the plan to tear it up, “Why didn’t he?”, “I had to take out after you,” the missing word sorry, and the grin at the inn. Each side must answer the other’s best line. Neither may say Charles meant to send it, or what Adam answered.

Purpose Close on where the chapter stops. Ask why Steinbeck ends not on Charles’s last words but on Adam, keeping a page that chills him for reasons he cannot name. The chapter opens on Charles laughing among strangers and closes on Adam alone with his brother’s words. Ask what the student makes of that frame.

Three levels

Easier Read aloud the paragraph at the inn, the swearing-in, the paragraph on Adam’s revulsion and his medals, and the whole letter. Mark where the pen breaks and where the words begin to race. Talk through the first, fourth and fifth 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 on how the letter’s form carries its meaning: the set opening, the jokes, the broken pen, the pencil, the racing words, the missing signature. What does the form show that Charles’s words do not say? The essay should meet the objection that a pen breaking is an accident, not a meaning.

Discussion

1. Charles has only a “meager jingle of silver.” On the night he beat his brother, he spends it on drinks for men he has just met. What is he buying with that money?Character

What it asks It asks what Charles gets for his few coins on the night he beat Adam. He takes out “his tobacco sack with its meager jingle of silver and bought the men a drink to keep them talking.” He “stood and grinned and rubbed his split knuckles.” When the drummers raise their glasses and say “Here’s to you,” “Charles was delighted,” and he buys “another drink for his new friends” and goes off with them “for some kind of deviltry in another place.” Later in the chapter, in his letter, Charles writes of another thing he bought: a birthday knife that, as he tells it, his father never used. The student names what the money buys beyond the drinks. The question feeds the hinge: this is the Charles the letter has to be set against. The card must not make Charles sorry; nothing on this page shows sorrow, and the narrator soon calls his humility “false” and “theatrical.”

A strong answer A strong response names what the money buys beyond the drinks, from this paragraph and one line of the letter. One reader says it buys a crowd for a victory: Charles grins, rubs his split knuckles and spends what little he has to keep the night going, with no sign of trouble. Another says it buys thanks: as Charles tells it, his father never used the knife he bought him, and here, for the price of a round, strangers say “Here’s to you.” The best answers hold this Charles in mind when they reach the kitchen at dawn.

2. If Cyrus had found Charles that night, the narrator says, he would probably have killed him. The very next sentence ends on “a fingernail nicked in the garden soil.” Why set something so small beside a killing that nearly happened?Author's choice

What it asks It asks why the narrator stops the story at its most dangerous point. Cyrus “stumped out into the night” and “was filled with a kind of despairing anger at Charles.” He looks on the road and at the inn, “but Charles was gone.” “It is probable that if he had found him that night he would have killed him, or tried to.” Then the narrator steps back: “The direction of a big act will warp history, but probably all acts do the same in their degree, down to a stone stepped over in the path or a breath caught at sight of a pretty girl or a fingernail nicked in the garden soil.” The next paragraph says “murder had sunk back to simple anger.” The student weighs what the list of small things does to the near-killing. It feeds the hinge: in his letter Charles also traces the beating back to a small thing, a birthday knife that, as he tells it, his father never used. The card must not say the narrator agrees with Charles; the aside does not mention the knife.

A strong answer A strong response says what the small things do to the big one. One reader hears chance: Charles was simply gone, and the narrator says tiny acts bend history as surely as big ones, so a whole family turned on that. Another hears distance: the calm list of girls and garden soil, and then murder sinking “back to simple anger,” make a father’s rage sound almost ordinary. The best answers carry the idea forward to the letter, where Charles hangs the beating on a small thing too, a birthday knife.

3. Adam lies in bed, too sore to move without a groan. From that bed, Cyrus has him sworn into the cavalry. The narrator says Cyrus does it “as a poultice to his own pride.” A poultice is a pad laid on a sore. What sore is Cyrus treating?Inference

What it asks It asks what hurt the narrator’s word “poultice” points to. A poultice is a warm, soft dressing laid on a sore to ease it. The one lying sore is Adam: he “lay four days in bed, so stiff and aching that he could not move without a groan.” Yet the narrator says Cyrus enlists him “as a poultice to his own pride and also as a kind of prize for Adam,” and names the father’s pride first. On the third day “his father gave evidence of his power with the military”: a captain and two sergeants “in dress uniform of blue” come into Adam’s bedroom, their horses held in the dooryard, and “his father’s eyes glistened with tears.” Afterward Cyrus tells him, “the cavalry has work to do. I made sure of that,” and “There’s fighting on the way.” On the night of the beating he had “stumped out into the night” in “a kind of despairing anger at Charles,” and the narrator says he would probably have killed him. The student names what wounded Cyrus’s pride and how a son’s enlistment is meant to cover it. It feeds the hinge: in his letter Charles asks “why our father did it” and hangs the beating on a gift Cyrus, as Charles tells it, never used; here Cyrus answers the beating with a gift of his own, and the narrator says it tends the father’s pride before the son. The card must not say what Cyrus feels beyond the anger, the tears and the narrator’s two reasons.

A strong answer A strong response names what hurt Cyrus’s pride and shows how the swearing-in is meant to cover it. One reader points to Charles: one son beat the other and ran, Cyrus went out in “despairing anger,” and days later he fills Adam’s bedroom with officers in dress blue, an honor laid over a disgrace. Another points to Adam: a son lies beaten and groaning, so Cyrus makes him a cavalryman and promises him “action,” though part 2 opens on a man who “did not like fighting.” The best answers notice that the bruised son is not the one being treated, and carry that into the letter, where Charles asks why their father did what he did.

4. While the pen holds, Charles writes “ha! ha!” twice. Once it breaks and he goes on in pencil, there are no more jokes. What were the jokes doing for him?Character

What it asks It asks what the jokes were doing for Charles and why they stop. The ink half opens the way he “always started” letters, “to ease himself gently into the task of writing.” The first joke follows a brother who has not written back: “I presume you have other things to do—ha! ha!” The second follows the house he cannot get clean since his mother died: “Something settles down on it. I don’t know what, but it will not scrub off. But I have spread the dirt around more evenly anyways. Ha! ha!” Then “the pen gave out,” and “it went on in pencil, but the writing was different.” The words “began to flow more smoothly,” then “began to race.” In the pencil half there is no joke at all, and only there does Charles reach the knife and “I had to take out after you.” The student explains what the jokes covered and what their end lets out. It feeds the hinge: whether the letter is an apology or an excuse turns on what changes in the pencil half. The card must not say whether Charles meant to send it; the narrator offers only “Maybe Charles forgot he had intended to destroy it.” The chair stays a chair: “It’s just the light.”

A strong answer A strong response finds what the jokes were doing and shows where they stop. One reader hears a cover: each laugh follows something sore, a brother who has not written and a house that will not come clean, and when the pen breaks Charles stops covering. Another hears manners: the jokes belong to a letter meant for a reader, and once Charles plans to tear it up there is no one left to joke for. The best answers notice that only in the pencil half, with the jokes gone, does he reach the knife and the beating.

5. Charles writes that it feels like he half finished a job and “can’t think what it was.” Which line in his own letter comes closest to telling him?Inference

What it asks It asks the student to answer Charles from his own page. He writes: “Seems like to me there’s something not finished. Seems like when you half finished a job and can’t think what it was. Something didn’t get done.” A few lines on: “There is something wrong, like it didn’t get finished, like it happened too soon and left something out.” The narrator has already said that Charles “put on paper many things he did not know about himself.” So the answer may sit in the letter where Charles cannot see it. The student picks one line and argues for it from what it says and where it stands. Several lines can carry it; two stand out. It feeds the hinge: the line a student picks says much about whether the letter is an apology or an excuse, and a letter that breaks off at “something not finished” cannot settle the brothers’ account. Adam rereads it, and “it gave him a chill and he didn’t know why.” The card must not call the letter a full confession, and must not make the chair a ghost.

A strong answer A strong response chooses a line and argues why it answers Charles better than he can answer himself. One reader picks “I want to say—I want to say”: the undone thing is what Charles has never said to Adam about the beating, and the letter stalls on it twice. Another picks “I had to take out after you,” which stands just before “not finished”; a job “half finished” may be the beating itself, which would explain Adam’s chill. The best answers lean on the narrator’s word that Charles wrote things “he did not know about himself,” and admit that more than one line can answer.

Critical thinking

1. Charles writes, “I had to take out after you.” The narrator says the Indian fighting “had to be done.” Adam is sent to do that fighting, and he fires to miss. How much choice does anyone in this chapter have about whether to hurt someone?

What it asks It asks the student to test one phrase across the whole chapter. Charles: “If he’d liked it I wouldn’t have took out after you. I had to take out after you.” The narrator, on the Indian wars, where the tribes were “driven and decimated” and the remnants “settled on starvation lands”: “It was not nice work but, given the pattern of the country’s development, it had to be done.” Adam, “an instrument,” sees “only the torn bellies of fine humans,” fires to miss, and commits “treason against his unit, and he didn’t care.” But the narrator also says Adam’s refusal became an emotion that “blotted out any possible thinking in its area.” The student builds a thesis about how far anyone here chooses to hurt or not, meets the strongest objection, and revises. It takes up one part of the hinge, Charles’s “had to,” without asking whether the letter is an apology. The card must not make Charles sorry, and must not treat Adam’s refusal as plain goodness.

A strong answer A strong response takes a position on choice, answers the strongest objection, and revises. One thesis says the chapter leaves room for choice: Adam, under orders, misses on purpose and risks treason, so Charles’s “had to” over a knife looks like an excuse. The strongest objection is that Adam’s refusal is no freer than Charles’s violence, since the narrator says it “blotted out any possible thinking.” A good revision might hold that both brothers are driven, but only one says “had to” to lift the blame from himself. Another might argue that the chapter judges a person less by the force that drives him than by what he does with it.

2. In his letter Charles says that if their father had liked the knife, he would not have gone after Adam. Is the letter an apology to Adam, or an excuse Charles makes to himself?

What it asks It asks the chapter’s whole question. On the night of the beating Charles laughs with strangers, buys their drinks and rubs “his split knuckles.” After two weeks in hiding he pays “in overwork and a false theatrical humility.” Years later, alone in the kitchen with the lamp on, he writes from past midnight to dawn. The pen breaks and he goes on in pencil: “I want to say—I want to say—I mean, I never understood—well, why our father did it.” Then the knife: “It was a good knife and he needed a good knife.” Then: “If he’d liked it I wouldn’t have took out after you. I had to take out after you.” Then: “It’s me should be where you are and you here. I never thought like this before.” The letter is not signed. Adam keeps it, though “it gave him a chill.” The student builds a thesis, meets the strongest objection, and revises. The card must not say Charles is sorry: the letter explains and regrets, but never says sorry. It must not say Charles meant to send it, or what Adam answers, and the chair is “just the light.”

A strong answer A strong response takes a side, answers the strongest objection, and revises. One thesis calls it an apology in the only form Charles has: written, not spoken, addressed to Adam, reaching the beating unasked and ending on “It’s me should be where you are and you here.” The strongest objection is that it never says sorry, lays the cause on a knife and a father, says “I had to,” and was meant to be thrown away, so it is Charles explaining himself to himself. A good revision might hold that the letter begins as an excuse and breaks off just where an apology would have to start. Another might take the narrator’s word that Charles put on paper “many things he did not know about himself,” and argue that the letter is neither yet: it is a man finding out.

Vocabulary definitions