East of Eden

Chapter 43

John Steinbeck · Mountaineers 10th–12th

Teaching Companion Print Adapt for your student

Copywork

He understood why Aron could not work at home in an atmosphere not conducive to hard clean thought. Mr. Rolf felt that Aron was his product, his spiritual son, his contribution to the church. He saw him through his travail of celibacy and felt that he was guiding him into calm waters.

Aron tried to pass. Lee stood up in front of him, his tiny fists doubled ineffectually, his stance and position so silly that he began to laugh.

Read both passages aloud. Both men want to steer Aron. Mr. Rolf sees him as “his product, his spiritual son, his contribution to the church.” Lee stands in his way with fists that cannot hurt him. Which man has the firmer hold on the boy?

For the educator The two passages set side by side the two grown men, other than his father, who try to guide Aron in this chapter. The first is the end of the paragraph that opens the second section, at the rectory. It is told in the narrator’s voice but from inside Mr. Rolf: “understood” and “felt” mark it as his view, so “an atmosphere not conducive to hard clean thought” is Mr. Rolf’s judgment of the Trask home, not the narrator’s. Its second sentence is a list of three, each item opening on “his,” and each one claims Aron for Mr. Rolf: “his product, his spiritual son, his contribution to the church.” Its third ends on a metaphor, “calm waters,” for where Mr. Rolf believes he is leading the boy; “travail” and “celibacy” are explained in the vocabulary. The second passage comes from the porch, late at night. A three-word sentence is followed by a long one built on two absolute phrases, “his tiny fists doubled ineffectually” and “his stance and position so silly,” which describe Lee without a verb of their own, and it ends on a result clause, “so silly that he began to laugh.” Students can practise the commas that set off a list and an absolute phrase, and notice “hard clean thought,” two adjectives before a noun with no comma between them. For the talk prompt, some will choose Mr. Rolf: Aron studies in his house, talks to him “long and close and personal,” and dines with him on the very day of his news. Others will choose Lee, whose silly stand gets Aron to sit down and say what is wrong, when Mr. Rolf, for all his claims, hears only the wish to withdraw. A few will say Mr. Rolf’s three “his”es describe a hold he believes he has, while Lee claims nothing and has the boy’s trust. Let the students hear the list against the laugh, and leave the verdict open.

Discussion

Narration Tell the chapter back, from the winter melon soup to the present on the pillow. Then name the one moment you think the whole chapter turns on.

Lee says some people are “it” all their lives, “hopelessly ‘it’.” In hide-and-seek, “it” is the one who looks while everyone else hides. Who in this chapter is “it”? Theme
Mr. Rolf tells Aron, “I hope you won’t find any pride in me in telling it. But there is a kind of glory in it.” Then he tells of the veiled woman, and by the end he can hardly breathe. How much of that glory is for her, and how much is for himself? Character
Adam tells Cal, “I think I’ll get him a gold watch.” The watch is already in his drawer, wound and set. Why does he pretend he has not bought it yet? Character
Aron is far bigger than Lee and could push past him. Instead he backs away and sits down on the steps. What stops him? Inference
Lee keeps one thing for his very last words: “your father left a present on your pillow.” Why save it for last? Character

Make a Connection Think of a story, or a time in your own life, when someone wanted to leave a place but could not say why. What might they have been trying to get away from?

Vocabulary

travail: He saw him through his travail of celibacy and felt that he was guiding him into calm waters. Hard, painful effort or struggle; in older English it also meant the labour of giving birth. It comes through French from a Latin name for an instrument of torture, which says how heavy the word is. Here it is Mr. Rolf’s word for Aron’s struggle with celibacy, the choice to live unmarried and without sex, as some clergy vow to do. Mr. Rolf believes he has seen Aron “through” it into “calm waters”; on the porch that night Aron is anything but calm.
ineffectually: Lee stood up in front of him, his tiny fists doubled ineffectually, his stance and position so silly that he began to laugh. In a way that has no effect and gets nothing done. It is effect with in-, not, in front of it: something ineffectual does not work. Lee’s fists are “doubled ineffectually” because they could never hurt a boy Aron’s size, and Lee knows it, which is why he laughs. Yet Aron backs away and sits down, so the word describes the fists, not the stand.
withdrawn: I can’t think that our Lord Jesus would want his priesthood withdrawn from service to the world. Pulled back or taken away from something; said of a person, quiet and turned in on oneself. It is the past participle of withdraw, with-, back or away, and draw, to pull. Aron has just wished for “Someplace to withdraw,” and Mr. Rolf turns the boy’s own word into a refusal: a priesthood “withdrawn from service to the world” is the thing he says our Lord would not want. Both meanings hang over Aron by the end of the chapter.
throatiness: His eyes began to glow and his voice took on the throatiness he used in sermons. A deep, husky sound, as if the voice came from low in the throat. It is built from throat, with -y making throaty and -ness making a noun of it. The narrator does not say Mr. Rolf is proud; he says the voice changes to his preaching voice just as Mr. Rolf says he hopes Aron will not find “any pride in me”. The word lets the reader hear what Mr. Rolf denies.
recessional: She wears a veil and she always leaves before I can get back after recessional. The hymn sung at the end of a church service while the minister and choir walk out. It comes from Latin recedere, to go back, the root of recess and recede. Aron sings in the choir, so he walks in this procession; the woman is always gone by the time Mr. Rolf gets back from it, which is part of why she stays a stranger to him.

Critical thinking

Adam says Aron will “save a year.” Lee asks, “What does he want to save it for?” Adam answers, “he’s ambitious.” Going by what Aron himself says in this chapter, what is the year for?
Lee tells Aron that his father is “lonelier than you are”. Then he asks him to “Go through the motions.” Is that a fair thing to ask of a boy who has just broken down?
Aron passes the exams Adam has been living for, yet he will not tell him. Why does he hide his success from the one person proudest of it?