East of Eden

Chapter 5

John Steinbeck · Mountaineers 10th–12th

Teaching Companion Print Adapt for your student

Copywork

Behind George, Will grew along, dumpy and stolid. Will had little imagination but he had great energy. From childhood on he was a hard worker, if anyone would tell him what to work at, and once told he was indefatigable.

It was his first sharp experience with the rule that without money you cannot fight money. But he had caught the patent fever, and year after year the money made by threshing and by smithing was drained off in patents. The Hamilton children went barefoot, and their overalls were patched and food was sometimes scarce, to pay for the crisp blueprints with cogs and planes and elevations.

Read both passages aloud. Each one ends on a long sentence that saves something for last. What does each sentence save, and why does it come last?

For the educator Two passages, six sentences, a son and his father. The first opens the paragraph on Will, the second son. Its first sentence is short and squat, like the boy it describes, and ends on “dumpy and stolid.” The second turns on “but,” setting “little imagination” against “great energy.” The third holds its praise back behind a condition, “if anyone would tell him what to work at,” and then “once told,” so the long, Latin-born word at its end, “indefatigable,” arrives only after we learn that someone else chooses the work. The second passage is the last three sentences of the paragraph on Samuel’s patents. The first states a rule that says “money” twice. The second opens on “But” and calls the habit a “fever.” The third gives the cost first, bare feet, patched overalls and short food, and saves the reason for the end, “to pay for the crisp blueprints,” where “crisp” makes the new paper sound fine beside the patched clothes. Students copying the two practise a sentence that turns on “but,” praise held back behind a condition, a word repeated for force, and a sentence that holds its cause until last. For the talk prompt, listen for a student who finds that Will’s sentence saves its praise, “indefatigable,” until after the limit “once told,” so the praise arrives already fenced in, and that Samuel’s saves its reason, the blueprints, until after the bare feet, so the cost is felt before it is explained. Listen too for one who notices that Will’s passage names no cost at all, while Samuel’s is mostly cost. Both can point to the page.

Discussion

Narration Tell the chapter back, from George, the first son, to the last paragraph, where the narrator calls them “a well-balanced family.”

The narrator describes George in the words of a court: no “crime of commission,” and crimes of omission that were “only misdemeanors.” Why talk about a good man as if he were on trial? Tone
Samuel’s plans for work in iron or wood are “good and understandable, even enviable.” On the edges he draws trees, faces, animals and bugs, and these make men “laugh with embarrassed uneasiness.” Why would men envy the useful drawings but feel uneasy about the useless ones? Inference
Tom is nine. He says “I can fix that,” sharpens his pocketknife on a stone, and cuts the skin under his sister’s tongue. Only then does he run away and get sick. Why is he sick after the cut, and not before? Author's choice
Joe is set to herd sixty sheep, the one job that takes no skill. He loses all of them, though they are only huddled in the shade of a dry gulch. Did he mean to? Character
In the end Liza knows her Bible so well that she reads it “without listening.” She does not listen to Samuel or to her sons and daughters either. Yet the narrator says she stamped every one of them. How does someone who never listens leave such a mark? Character

Make a Connection Families often hand out labels: the smart one, the funny one, the one who needs looking after. Think of a label like that, in a family you know or in a story. Did it help the person who got it, or hold them back?

Vocabulary

courtliness: George was a tall handsome boy, gentle and sweet, who had from the first a kind of courtliness. Polished, gracious manners, like those expected at a royal court. The narrator gives it to George “from the first”: even as a small boy he was polite and neat, a son who caused no trouble.
stolid: Behind George, Will grew along, dumpy and stolid. Steady and slow to be stirred; showing little feeling or excitement (from the Latin stolidus, dull). The next sentence says what it means in Will: “Will had little imagination but he had great energy.”
indefatigable: From childhood on he was a hard worker, if anyone would tell him what to work at, and once told he was indefatigable. Tireless; able to keep going without wearing out (from the Latin in-, not, and defatigare, to tire out). The narrator gives it to Will with a condition: he was tireless “once told,” when someone else had chosen the work.
pernicious: In his middle life, at about the time such things were known about, it was discovered that he had pernicious anemia. Harmful in a slow, hidden way, so that the damage is found late. Pernicious anemia is a disease of the blood that leaves a person weak and tired; in George it was “discovered” only in middle life, and the narrator wonders if it explains his virtue.

Critical thinking

The narrator guesses that Will learned to fear new ideas as a little boy, from talk about his father in the San Lucas store. Each step of the guess comes with a “Maybe,” a “perhaps” or a “might.” How far do you believe him?
Will is lucky, Joe gets what he wants by seeming helpless, and Samuel’s patents eat his savings. In the Hamilton family, does a person’s nature shape the life they get, or does luck?