East of Eden

Chapter 45

John Steinbeck · Mountaineers 10th–12th

Teaching Companion Print Adapt for your student

Copywork

As her hands and her mind grew more crooked, Kate began to rely more and more on Joe Valery as her assistant in chief, as her go-between, and as her executioner. She had a basic fear of the girls in the house—not that they were more untrustworthy than Joe but that the hysteria which lay very close to the surface might at any time crack through their caution and shatter their sense of self-preservation and tear down not only themselves but their surroundings. Kate had always been able to handle this ever-present danger, but now the slow-depositing calcium and the slow growth of apprehension caused her to need help and to look for it from Joe. Men, she knew, had a little stronger wall against self-destruction than the kind of women she knew.

Well, had anything or anybody ever really touched Kate—really got through and soiled her? Certainly not. Only the hard outside had been brushed by contacts. Inside she was intact—as clean and bright as this boy Alec—was that his name?

Read both passages aloud: the narrator on Kate, then Kate on herself. Which one tells the truth about her?

For the educator The first passage comes from the second section, between Kate’s sleepless night and the Venuta file; the second comes from the fourth section, just after Kate pictures Aron carrying the cross in church. The first is four sentences in the narrator’s voice. The opening sentence yokes body and mind with one adjective, “her hands and her mind grew more crooked,” and then climbs through three titles for Joe, each introduced by “as her”: assistant, go-between, executioner. The list gets darker as it goes. The second sentence turns on “not that” and “but that”, and its second half runs three verbs, joined by “and”: “crack through”, “shatter” and “tear down”. Then it closes on “not only themselves but their surroundings.” The third sentence pairs the body and the mind again in matching phrases, “the slow-depositing calcium and the slow growth of apprehension”, so the arthritis and the fear seem to grow at one rate. The last turns from Kate to a general claim about men and women, with “she knew” near its start and again at its end. The second passage is Kate’s own thinking, in four sentences: a question, a two-word answer, a short sentence about the outside, and a long one about the inside that breaks off into another question. Students can practise the dash that opens an explanation, the commas around “she knew,” the hyphenated compounds, and the two dashes that set off a comparison inside a sentence. For the talk prompt, some will trust the narrator: the first passage shows a woman who needs help and fears that hysteria might “crack through” caution. Others will trust Kate’s “Certainly not.” Others will notice that her own passage ends on a question she cannot answer, about her son’s name. Let them argue it; the chapter’s last section is the test of both.

Discussion

Narration Tell the chapter back in a few sentences, from Joe’s rules to the locked door of the gray room. Then pick the one sentence you think matters most, and say why Steinbeck needs it there.

In the night, Kate’s own mind asks her, “Isn’t it because you made a mistake?” Which frightens her more, Ethel or the mistake? Character
Kate has kept the name Venuta to herself. She was saving it for a day when Joe “got out of hand.” What makes her use it this morning? Inference
In Monterey, Joe throws a pen to scare a woman, and he enjoys her fear. Then he cries himself to sleep, and the narrator calls that “another pleasure.” How do the two pleasures fit together? Theme
The narrator breaks into Hal’s dinner talk with a detail about Ethel’s body that “would have bothered” her. Then the narrator says, “She would have liked more dignity.” Why tell us the detail at all? Author's choice
Joe’s caution tells him to go in, tell Kate, and get his five hundred. Which of his seven rules wins the argument? Character
In the night Kate can call up the word on Mr. Edwards’ suspenders, a word she never even noticed. Why does she have to hunt for her own son’s name? Inference

Make a Connection Think of a time you saw something on a person’s face that they did not mean to show. What did you do with what you saw?

Vocabulary

go-between: As her hands and her mind grew more crooked, Kate began to rely more and more on Joe Valery as her assistant in chief, as her go-between, and as her executioner. A person who carries messages and dealings between two sides so they need not meet. In Kate’s list it stands between “assistant in chief” and “executioner.” Joe is the one who goes out into the world for her, and that is how he comes to know something she does not.
self-preservation: She had a basic fear of the girls in the house—not that they were more untrustworthy than Joe but that the hysteria which lay very close to the surface might at any time crack through their caution and shatter their sense of self-preservation and tear down not only themselves but their surroundings. The instinct to keep yourself safe from harm. Kate fears that the girls’ hysteria might “shatter” it, and she believes men have “a little stronger wall” against self-destruction, so she turns to Joe. Set the word beside the morning when Kate herself is “startled out of control.”
inspective: He felt fine even though her eyes were suited and inspective again. Looking closely in order to examine and judge, the way an inspector does. It is a rare adjective made from inspect, and it turns Kate’s eyes into instruments. The word “again” matters: Joe knows this look. At the second breakfast he is the one who reads a face.
hole-card: Maybe Ethel might be a hole-card. In stud poker, the card dealt face down that only its holder sees, kept back until it can win the hand. Joe thinks in cards all through the chapter (“draw his hand”, “play ’em close”, “follow suit”). Here he first sees Ethel, a woman he has not yet found, as a card to hold against Kate.
self-absorption: Joe breathed shallowly, afraid that any sound might drag her out of her self-absorption. The state of being so taken up with your own thoughts that you stop noticing what is around you. That morning Kate was “so filled with amusement at her thoughts that she did not hear Joe’s knocking”; now the same inward turn has gone dark, and Joe takes care not to break it.

Critical thinking

The narrator says hate “must have love as a trigger,” and in Joe that love is for Joe himself. What love, if any, sets off Kate’s hates?
The chapter’s last sentence says Joe “would have laughed out loud” if he had known what Kate did. She went into the gray room, locked the door, and sat with her eyes closed. Would he have been right to laugh?
Kate has always seen straight through Joe, yet his lie about Ethel works on her completely. Why does it work this time?