Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn once said that “the battle line between good and evil runs through the heart of every man. ” East of Eden is a novel written by twentieth century author John Steinbeck. The Viking Press published it in 1952. The narration takes place from 1862 to 1918, mostly in the Salinas Valley, although some episodes happen in Massachusetts and Connecticut. John Steinbeck’s East of Eden depicts humanity’s struggle between virtue and in as a perpetual narrative of human history.
Cathy Ames, the most controversial character in the novel, seems to be the only person of the book incapable of good: she has the characteristics of a born moral monster. She is not. The events that took place in her childhood affected Cathy. We will then see how the depredation and immorality of Cathy’s childhood makes it impossible for her to choose goodness over evil. Throughout this essay, we will be studying the three disparate phases of Cathy’s childhood: her engagement in a sexual act at only ten years old, followed by causing her Latin teacher’s suicide at fourteen and finally murdering her parents by arson at sixteen years of age.
We will then analyze the impossibility of her gaining the ability to empathize based on these beginnings. Cathy Ames, since the beginning of the novel, has conveyed a feeling a monstrosity and evilness. From the reader’s viewpoint, this has given her a one-sided mindset: sin’s. However, it is apparent that this woman was not born into such wickedness. Rather, the circumstances that took place and how she dealt with them forged her immoral personality. Cathy’s childhood, as, as depicted by Steinbeck, essentially been about learning to manipulate people through her sexuality: she “planned, foresaw, and prepared for difficulties (Steinbeck 74). The author uses an enumeration to illustrate the fact that the so-called “little” girl was able to control the power of the “sex impulse” at only ten (74). John Steinbeck then gives us a glimpse of this behaviour during her first sexual experience. He multiplies the occurrences of the noun “giggle” and then explains that Mrs. Ames believes that Cathy is “not a giggler” (75).
Thus, this passage clearly illustrates the opposition of what Cathy really is to what her parents believe she is. Moreover, upon the discovery of her act, Catherine seems to have never planned this, then contradicting the previous quote. Steinbeck uses an accumulation “and her breathing stopped and her body grew more rigid and her cheeks reddened” to express this (76). The repetition of the term “and” creates an emphasis on Cathy’s condition after her experience, and affects the reader to a certain point where he empathizes with her.
Ultimately, Cathy intentionally sets up the two boys, who then subsequently suffer the consequences of their supposed actions: the boys were “whipped, whipped to raw cuts” (76). Through this episode of her childhood, the young girl learns that she can exploit and manipulate people using her own sexuality. Consequently, she is able to escape punishment. This immoral and degrading moment then affects her. From now on, she uses her sexuality to gain control over situations. Following her first sexual experience at ten years of age, Cathy Ames continues to use her sexuality to manipulate people and finally destroy them.
The next instance is her Latin teacher’s suicide, which the young girl causes. James Grew is initially introduced as a “pale, intense” and “quiet” young man (78). The first encounter with this character already gives a negative view of him, as we can see through the pessimistic lexical field of defeat “rejected,” “failure,” and “failed” (78). In spite of this, this character is soon described as having “fire” and a “force” glowing in his eyes (78). Fire is here affiliated to passion, love and the fact that it is life-consuming.
She is able to control people through her sexuality, transforming Grew into “a man” (78). Furthermore, Steinbeck uses the meliorative lexical field of accomplishment to contrast Grew’s behaviour before and after meeting Cathy: “persuasive,” “favorable” (78). However, soon enough, “the flame [goes] out,” once again proving Cathy’s manipulative power over people (78). James Grew appears at the Ames house, his eyes “shining” and his body “one big shudder”; the semantic field of madness depicts him as “wild,” (78) “frantic,” (79) and “crazy-looking” (78).
Finally, the Latin teacher repeats the same sentence throughout his short dialogue with Mr. Ames: “I can’t wait. I can’t wait” (79). This again proves Grew’s uneasiness, restlessness and anxiety when facing the shame of his actions. He cannot be attracted to a “little” girl. Catherine surely did not suspect things to go this far, which would explain why she ran away from home shortly afterwards. Through all these elements, we can then undeniably declare that Cathy’s rejection of Grew has greatly affected him, causing him to commit suicide.
This episode of Cathy’s childhood has then degraded her into consistently using her sexuality to manipulate people. The latter used it to kill someone. We will now continue with our analysis of East of Eden through the next instance in Cathy’s childhood: her parents’ parricide. Following her Latin teacher’s suicide, Cathy runs away from home and due to this, is severely whipped. During the spanking, the young girl again manipulates her dad in order to stop the whipping, as we can see, she “screamed, writhed, cried, begged, and the blows instantly became lighter” (83).
Steinbeck describes this using an enumeration to emphasize Cathy’s power over people, who in reality does not seem to suffer. Her eyes and her face are indeed constantly describes as “cold” and “calm,” which shows that Cathy not only controls other people, but must also control herself to be convincing. Although the girl seems to have won, she has not. She finally realizes that her parents have power over her, and are the only people she cannot use her sexuality against. Only they can withstand her. Moreover, Cathy believes they are the only ones who do not see her for whom she really is evil.
She is already “past sixteen” but they see her as a “baby,” although Cathy is, at that point, already self-aware of whom she is. She begins to hate them, as they are the exact opposite of her. They are good. She then decides to dispose of them. However, she must first fool them. Indeed, The passage preceding Cathy’s parricide depicts Cathy as a changed person. Catherine is illustrated through the semantic field of success and beauty “thoughtful,” (83) “good student,” (83) “smarter,” (84) “beautiful,” (84) “fresh” (85) and “pretty” (85). Her parents have then absolutely no idea of what will happen next.
Steinbeck describes the fire as one that “rose, flared, roared, crashed and crumbled,” personifying the fire as an animal through this enumeration (85). It magnifies the fact that there is no way out for the Ames. Cathy, furthermore, decides to fake her own death: the coroners and helpers “could find no tooth or bone” (86). Through this, Cathy realizes that by causing her parents’ death by arson and faking her own, she can avert punishment and the consequences of her actions. From then on, death becomes a useful trick and a means of escape for her.
All those episodes of Cathy Ames’ childhood forged her immoral and degraded personality. Indeed, based on these beginnings, Cathy had the impossibility of gaining the ability to empathize with others. Catherine is unable to love others, as she is unable to love herself. The young girl, now a woman, has always believed that everyone is as evil as she is, and simply cannot understand anyone who is different from her. Cathy Ames only sees “one side” and is sure “that’s all there is” (382). She undeniably thinks that men could not have “goodness and eauty” in them (382).
Her son Cal describes her as one that is “afraid of light” (462). In fact, Cathy is certain that there is no light. That is the reason she undoubtedly cannot understand it, and thus, cannot empathize with anyone. Moreover, while Steinbeck describes her as a “mental” and “psychic” monster, she is neither (71). Cathy may have lacked the ability to love and empathize with others, and she may have not understand virtue and emotions, but she was not a monster. Essentially, Cathy’s life story is one of an individual who spiraled down the wrong path.
Rather than facing her problems, Cathy would escape them through her use of sexuality and death. Additionally, Cathy is obviously seen as a villain by many readers. And while her lack of humanity is frightening, as she can be depicted as “part of a human,” that is not the scariest thing about the character (382). The latter solely went down the wrong path. And that situation could happen to anybody. Finally, John Steinbeck himself remarks that Cathy might not be a monster. While it seemed to him “that it was so,” he declares that it is too “easy” to say that she was bad, unless we knew “why” (182).
And the answer to this is the indecency of her childhood, which degraded the young girl while bringing a fatal blow to her ethics, which became immoral. We can then affirm that Cathy’s childhood has greatly affected her, as it was impossible for her to gain the ability to empathize. Throughout our analysis of the text, we have seen that the three phases of Cathy Ames’ immoral childhood have extremely influenced and disturbed her in so many ways. She learned that her sexuality could be used to manipulate and exploit people, while death became a means of escape to her.
It was thus impossible for her to understand morality and empathize with others. Therefore, the depredation and immorality of Cathy’s childhood made it impossible for her to choose good over evil. Cathy was caught in a net of goodness and evil, but had no other choice than to opt for sin. John Steinbeck’s East of Eden then depicts humanity’s struggle between virtue and sin as a perpetual narrative of human history. Cathy Ames was tainted from the earliest age, and used evil at her convenience. William Shakespeare affirmed it. “Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall. “