Chapter 7

East of Eden

Mountaineers · 10th–12th

Copywork

It would be reasonable to suppose that a routine time or an eventless time would seem interminable. It should be so, but it is not. It is the dull eventless times that have no duration whatever. A time splashed with interest, wounded with tragedy, crevassed with joy—that’s the time that seems long in the memory. And this is right when you think about it. Eventlessness has no posts to drape duration on.

Read the passage aloud. The narrator says dull times seem to take no time at all, and times full of pain or joy seem long in the memory. Think of a dull stretch of your own life. Did it feel short while you were living it, or only when you look back?

For the educator Six sentences from the narrator’s short essay on time, near the start of the chapter, which explains how Adam’s second five years in the army are “up before he knew it.” The passage is an argument in small. The first sentence grants the common view (“It would be reasonable to suppose”), and the second turns it over in eight short words: “It should be so, but it is not.” The third states the claim, built for stress: “It is … that” puts the weight on “the dull eventless times.” The fourth gives the opposite case. It piles three phrases of the same shape, each a past participle, “with” and a noun (“splashed with interest, wounded with tragedy, crevassed with joy”), then stops at a dash and gathers all three in one word, “that’s.” The three verbs are all marks made on something: a splash, a wound, a crack. The fifth sentence is short and talks to the reader, beginning with “And.” The sixth closes on a metaphor, time as cloth hung on posts, with the sound of “drape duration” tying the two words together. Students copying it practise a concession and its reversal, a cleft sentence for stress, a run of matched phrases, and a dash that gathers a list. For the talk prompt, listen for a student who finds that a dull stretch dragged while it lasted and shrank afterward. That is the view the narrator grants at the start (“It would be reasonable to suppose”), and his own claim is about memory: the full time “seems long in the memory.” Listen too for a student who says the dull time felt short even while it passed, as Adam’s did. The chapter itself tests the rule. Adam’s last five years in the army vanish in a few sentences, and the road gang was “much more horrible afterward than when it was happening.”

Discussion

Narration Tell the chapter back, from Adam’s last years in the army to the end, where Adam says, “We’ll feel it out.”

1. Twice in the first part, something happens to Adam “before he knew it.” How much of his life in these years does Adam actually choose?Character

2. The narrator calls it “a triumph of self-control” to watch a man whipped and give no sign of pity. What has Adam defeated when he learns this?Author's choice

3. Charles complains that their father liked Adam’s gifts and not his. The complaint ends on the pup Adam gave. It was at the funeral, blind and unable to walk, and “They shot it after the funeral.” Why does Charles finish on that?Inference

4. Back home, Adam finds he is no longer afraid of his brother. When Charles’s eyes spark with anger, Adam only chuckles. But when Charles cries, “a little of the old fear came back.” Why do the tears bring it back when the anger did not?Character

5. Charles tells Adam that their father was never at Gettysburg. The proof is in the discharge papers. The news has crushed Charles. But in Adam’s chest, “like beating fists, was a surge of joy.” What does Adam hear in the news that Charles does not?Inference

Make a Connection Adam guesses that love can make a person “suspicious and doubting,” and that not loving can make trust easy. Think of the people you trust most easily. Are they the people you love most?

Vocabulary

interminable It would be reasonable to suppose that a routine time or an eventless time would seem interminable.

eventlessness Eventlessness has no posts to drape duration on.

unkemptness There was litter about it, an unkemptness, a rundownness, a lack of plan; no flowers, and bits of paper and scraps of wood scattered about on the ground.

Critical thinking

1. Charles believes their father stole the money. Yet when Adam says they could write to the G.A.R. and ask, Charles says, “I wouldn’t dare.” What keeps him from finding out?

Thesis

Objection

Revision

2. Adam will not look at the papers because his faith in Cyrus is stronger, though he never loved him. Is that faith honest, or a way of keeping the money without asking where it came from?

Thesis

Objection

Revision