East of Eden

Chapter 47

John Steinbeck · Mountaineers 10th–12th

Teaching Companion Print Adapt for your student

Copywork

Adam Trask had seen a war—a little war of maneuver and butchery, but at least he had experienced the reversal of the rules where a man is permitted to kill all the humans he can. Adam didn’t remember his war very well. Certain sharp pictures stood out in his memory, a man’s face, the piled and burning bodies, the clang of saber scabbards at fast trot, the uneven, tearing sound of firing carbines, the thin cold voice of a bugle in the night. But Adam’s pictures were frozen. There was no motion or emotion in them—illustrations in the pages of a book, and not very well drawn.

His picture—never really inspected—had been of clean-eyed young men and immaculate girls, all in academic robes and converging on a white temple on the crown of a wooded hill in the evening. Their faces were shining and dedicated and their voices rose in chorus and it was never any time but evening. He had no idea where he had got his picture of academic life—perhaps from the Doré illustrations of Dante’s Inferno with its massed and radiant angels. Leland Stanford University was not like that. A formal square of brown sandstone blocks set down in a hayfield; a church with an Italian mosaic front; classrooms of varnished pine; and the great world of struggle and anger re-enacted in the rise and fall of fraternities. And those bright angels were youths in dirty corduroy trousers, some study-raddled and some learning the small vices of their fathers.

Read both passages aloud. Where does each one stop showing a picture and start judging it?

For the educator The first passage is the whole second paragraph of section 1; the second is the second paragraph of section 3, from “His picture” to its end. The first is five sentences. The opening sentence states a plain fact, “Adam Trask had seen a war,” then after a dash renames it with two nouns joined by “and,” “maneuver and butchery,” a soldier’s word beside a slaughterhouse word, and turns on “but at least” to the rules turned upside down. The second sentence is seven plain words. The third sets five pictures in a series after a comma and moves from what Adam saw to what he heard: a face, the bodies, the clang of scabbards, the sound of carbines, the voice of a bugle. Beside “piled and burning,” two pairs of adjectives sit in it with no “and”: “uneven, tearing” takes a comma, and “thin cold” does not. The fourth opens on “But” and is five words long. The fifth sets two nouns that nearly rhyme side by side, “motion or emotion,” then after a dash calls the pictures “illustrations in the pages of a book,” and adds a last judgment after a comma and “and”: “not very well drawn.” The second passage is six sentences. The first sets a short aside between two dashes, “never really inspected,” uses the hyphenated “clean-eyed,” and ends on “evening.” The second joins its parts with “and” three times and no comma, and ends on “evening” again. The third guesses, after a dash and “perhaps,” where the picture came from. The fourth is seven plain words. The fifth has no main verb: it is a list of four things split by semicolons, the last after “and.” The sixth opens on “And,” comes back to the angels as “those bright angels,” and answers them with “youths in dirty corduroy trousers,” split in two by “some study-raddled and some learning the small vices of their fathers.” Students can practise the paired dashes, the commas in a series, the comma between two adjectives that each describe the noun, the semicolons in a list, the hyphens in “clean-eyed,” “re-enacted” and “study-raddled,” and the apostrophes in “didn’t,” “man’s,” “Adam’s” and “Dante’s.” For the talk prompt, some will say Adam’s passage judges from its first sentence, in “butchery”; others will point to “But Adam’s pictures were frozen.” or to the last words, “not very well drawn.” Some will say Aron’s passage judges at once, in “never really inspected”; others will point to “Leland Stanford University was not like that.” Let them argue; there is no single answer.

Discussion

Narration Tell the chapter back in a few sentences, from the map of pins to Aron’s dream of the ranch. Then choose the one sentence you would keep if you could keep only one, and say what Steinbeck needs it for.

Henry tells Adam, “You pass boys I could be talked into letting off.” Which of the two men is the fairer judge? Moral reasoning
Henry likes fun and keeps away from anything serious. Yet he is the one who says aloud what Adam fears about his own sons. Does that leave Adam any less alone with it? Character
Lee says responsibility “doesn’t carry any pleasant egotism.” What could be pleasant about blame? Theme
Adam has already said the word timshel aloud. What makes him ask for it again at the end of their talk? Character
Aron finds the “natural noise and fuss and horseplay” of the students horrifying. How much of Stanford, as the narrator shows it, deserves that word? Character
In Aron’s dream of college it was “never any time but evening.” Why does Steinbeck set the dream of the ranch in the evening too? Author's choice

Make a Connection Think of someone, in another book or in history, who had to decide something that no rule could decide for them. What did deciding cost them?

Vocabulary

querulous: His face was querulous. Complaining and fretful, like someone put out by a thing he would rather not face. Henry likes fun and avoids serious matters, and the talk of judging his own sons has pushed him into one. His face complains while his words agree: “you’re right. A man couldn’t.”
re-enacted: A formal square of brown sandstone blocks set down in a hayfield; a church with an Italian mosaic front; classrooms of varnished pine; and the great world of struggle and anger re-enacted in the rise and fall of fraternities. Acted out again, the way a play or an old battle is staged a second time. The narrator says the world’s “struggle and anger” plays again, in small, in the rise and fall of fraternities. Aron hoped for a temple set apart from the world; the word says the world was there too.
study-raddled: And those bright angels were youths in dirty corduroy trousers, some study-raddled and some learning the small vices of their fathers. Worn out and muddled by too much study. The word “raddled” means worn and confused, and Steinbeck joins it to “study” with a hyphen. Set against the “shining and dedicated” faces of Aron’s picture, it shows real students tired in an ordinary way.
abjectness: In a frenzy he poured joyous abjectness on paper to send to her, and he went to bed purified, as a man is after sexual love. The state of making yourself low and humble, as someone does who begs forgiveness. Abjectness is usually miserable, and Steinbeck calls Aron’s “joyous.” The two words pull against each other, so the reader has to decide what kind of humbling this is.
scudding: He remembered the great oaks and the clear living air, the clean sage-laced wind from the hills and the brown oak leaves scudding. Moving fast and lightly before the wind, as clouds or small boats do. Aron’s memory of the ranch is full of clean, moving air, and the leaves scud across it. He dreams it from inside a “dreary furnished room.”

Critical thinking

There is “no motion or emotion” in Adam’s memories of his own war. How far does his work on the draft board change that?
Each night Aron goes to bed “purified” after his letter to Abra. In it he writes down every evil thought he has and swears it off. What, if anything, has he given up?
Lee says, “All great and precious things are lonely.” Is the loneliness Adam feels on the draft board the same as Aron’s loneliness at Stanford?