East of Eden Part 3

What do you suppose Charles' motives were in equally dividing his inheritance between Adam and Cathy?
                 Charles motives in equally dividing his inheritance betweent the two was to make up for lost time. Charles thinks that he will be able to make amens with his brother and it is his way of apologizing to him and showing his love by leaving him his fortune. It is not just because he has no other relatives. He also shares it with Cathy because he knows that the twins are probably his children. "Your sons? I am the mother yes-but how do you know you are the father?"(pg.324). Cathy is talking to Adam and reveals to him that she slept with him, and there is a good chance that Charles is the father. Charles knew this and so he split his fortune to make sure his children were taken care of. He also may have loved Cathy too, which is why he went to bed with her. "I could have loved Charles", revealed Cathy,"He was like me in a way"(pg. 324). Charles and Cathy were able to connect on a level because they both recognized something in each other and understood their bad sides. Charles left his fortune to take care of his family.

In many ways Lee's mother is the opposite of Cathy. How so? Why is the story of her rape included in the novel? Is the way that Lee's father and then Lee tell the story important?
                Lee's mother is opposite to Cathy because she was loyal to her husband and a dedicated mother.  "she was a strong woman....a strong woman may be stronger than a man particularly if she happens to have love in her heart"(pg.357). Lee notes that even though his mother was pregnant she was still able to endure heavy labor and conceal her sex. She loved her husband enough to stand by him and fight throught their struggles. She is unselfish. However, Cathy is selfish and was not at all dedicated to anyone. She does not seem to love her children the way that Lee's mother does. Her rape is included in the story because it gets Adam to write a letter to his brother. It provokes enough emotion out of him to reach out once again. Lee and his father tell the stroy with love for his mother and with humility and it is important so the listener can fully grasp what Lee's mother did for them.


In Journal of a Novel: The East of Eden Letter, Steinbeck wrote, "I think you will find that Cathy as Kate will fascinate people. People are always interested in evil even when they pretend their interest is clinical. And they will mull Kate over and over. They will forget I said she was bad. And they will hate her because while she is a monster, she is a little piece of the monster in all of us. It won't be because she is foreign that people will be interested but because she is not." Why does Cathy begin to show cracks in her facade during her confrontation with Adam? If she seems more recognizably human in her rage and sorrow, is she still a monster as first described? Why would Steinbeck wish to male his readers see Cathy in different ways? If the author is "rereading" Cathy with each encounter, is he also asking readers to reexamine her and their assumptions about evil? Or does she remain fixed through the novel thoroughly evil, unsympathetic and a "monster"?
                     Cathy begins to show cracks in her facade with Adam because she is desperately trying to hold on to Adam even though she can not. "For the moment she had forgotten her will-fight against the cruising alcohol, and now she had lost the battle"(pg. 320). She drinks alcohol with him even when she knows what it does to her because now everyone can see her evil, and it is not a secret. However, she thinks that she may still have a hold on Adam and can seduce him to get back on his good side. "I could crook my little finger and you'd come bacj slobbering and crawling on your knees"(pg.321). When she is rejected she gets angry. She attempts to hurt him with her words and show him her true personality out of spite. Her feelings and pride were wounded by him and she lashed out. Steinbeck is making the readers see that she is human like all of us and that good does eventually triumph over evil. Cathy is stuck in a brothel and growing old, ugly, and fat while Adam is not described this way nor is Samuel in his old age.The reader gets to see the beginning of Cathy's demise. Adam can finally begin to understand her and sees she is "only part of a human"(pg.385). He notices that she has something missing and that she does not realize it. The part that she is missing is the goodness and compassion in her heart. She only thinks that there is bad in the world and everyone who is good is simply faking it. She has a bleak outlook on the world."Her body shoow with something that felt like rage and also like sorrow"(pg. 385). Here the reader can see a new side of Cathy and see she is vulnerable. She only taunts Adam because he has affected her and hit a soft spot, and scares her by doing it. She finally is able to realize what she missed out on by leaving him.