East of Eden - Revisiting the Whole

Stepping back to view structure, talk money, and ask questions

Welcome to Reading Revisited, a place for friends to enjoy some good old-fashioned book chat while revisiting the truth, beauty, and goodness we’ve found in our favorite books.

Our final, and fifth post on East of Eden. I have enjoyed this journey with you so immensely.

Today I wish only to briefly touch on structure and money, and then I’ll throw out some questions to stimulate further discussion.

Structure:

To begin, a sparse outline of this book:

Part One - 11 chapters

Part Two - 11 chapters

Part Three - 11 chapters

Part Four - 22 chapters

Now, I’ve been hinting at the double-chapter-length, lopsided ending Part Four of this novel since Part Two when I first put in the footnote: “Why did Steinbeck not use Five Parts like Shakespeare?”

As context, Shakespeare uses a Five Act play in order to give himself a perfect middle.¹ The middle Act (particularly the middle scene of the middle Act, i.e. Act 3: Scene 3)² is then either utilized as the lowest moment of the play (as in the case of a comedy) or the highest of the play (as in the case of a tragedy). For example, in Act 3: Scene 3 of the comedy Much Ado About Nothing, Don John (the villain) tricks Claudio into thinking he’s watching his fiancé, Hero, have sex with Borachio, and because of this deceptive perspective Claudio vows to expose Hero as woman without virtue on their wedding day, and leave her at the altar. Pretty dark moment for a comedy. Whereas in the tragedy Romeo and Juliet in Act 3: Scene 3, Friar Lawrence tells Romeo that his life has been mercifully spared, that he is not sentenced to death, that Juliet remains faithful to him, and that if Romeo will just be a man and rise to the occasion, Friar Lawrence is sure that patience and the friar’s efforts at reconciliation will reunite them. Pretty hopeful for literature’s most famously doomed star-crossed lovers.

(Reminder from a footnote in East of Eden - Part Two: a helpful tool for keeping the tragic and comedic story arcs straight, is by simply picturing the mouths on the masks of tragedy and comedy.)

All this to say… if a Five Act story is not only a strong tradition, but a helpful tool, why did Steinbeck deny himself a Five Part novel? It was in the midst of Part Three, that I began having the hunch that he did not. Looking at Part Four, and seeing that it has double the chapters, I became convinced that he did not remove the middle of this book, he hid it.

To test this theory within the work itself (not through external sources on authorial intention³), I began examining the centers of each Part, asking myself if they were of “central” importance.

Center chapters of each Part:

Part One: Chapter 6 - Charles receives the “Mark of Cain.” That felt central enough. Not a chapter with a gagillion underlines, but enough to keep me looking into the center chapters for the next Parts.

Part Two: Chapter 17 - Cathy gives birth to the twins and shoots Adam. Well that felt like a full-throated “YES” to the question: “Is this chapter of central importance.” So I kept looking.

Part Three: Chapter 28 - Lee’s parents story. Discussed at length in the East of Eden - Part Three post, I do not believe the novel achieves more epic or mythic heights than in this story within a story. Nor does it reach such disturbingly violent lows. Scenes with Cathy may be twisted and dark, but her actions don’t leave me weeping for all mankind. But this story? Humanity could not get any lower. Nor, more complex. It concludes, after all, with Lee saying his father said that no men ever cared for a child as they cared for Lee. So yes, this chapter felt central.

Part Four: Chapters 44 & 45 - Abra & Lee & Cal all grow close (44); and Joe the pimp searches for Ethel (45). Hmm. These “combined middle” chapters were kind of a let down after the center of Part Three. And this got me excited...if I were to split Part Four into two parts, and then look at what centers were created, what would we find?

As in, if the structure was outlined like this, would it reveal more?

Part One - 11 chapters (chapters 1-11)

Part Two - 11 chapters (chapters 12-22)

Part Three - 11 chapters (chapters 23-33)

Part Four (a) - 11 chapters (chapters 34 - 44)

Part Four (b) - 11 chapters (chapters 45-55)

Jackpot.

Part Four (a) - Chapter 39 - Cal has his first real conversation with Adam, and then goes out to meet Cathy and deny her ability to determine who he is. The amount of annotations on the last pages of this chapter make it hard to read.

Part Four (b) - Chapter 50 - Cathy’s death. Need I say more?

So, I feel confident (and excited) in suggesting that this novel does utilize a Five Part structure, it’s just that the Fifth Part is hidden within Part Four.

Now, the next and obvious question is: why?

(From here, you can follow me through many rephrasings of variations of this question, all of which are just the beginnings of conjecturings.)

What does creating a Five Part story, but labeled as Four Parts, accomplish? Was it to hide Part Three as the center? Maybe, but everybody can just look at page numbers and know when they are at half way. Is it then, a means of hiding the centrality of chapters 39 and 50? What does that do? Make their importance more subtle? What does giving chapters 39 and 50 a central place of importance in one’s reading do, that placing chapters 44 and 45 in that central role doesn’t? Does it change the reading? Does it change the meaning? And slightly rejecting all of my previous questions, did Steinbeck hide his Five Act structure, or did he reject the Five Act structure? And if his structure purposefully refuses the Five Act structure, is he pushing against the tragic and comedic story arcs? What, in short, do we make of this structure? Why this way? What does it accomplish?

I’ll end these thoughts as I’ve been ending a lot of my thoughts on East of Eden ever since Part Three (and as, perhaps, I’ll end all future attempts at reflecting on any masterpiece): timshel.

Money/Inheritance

Leaving structure behind (or keep it with you, your choice, timshel), let’s talk briefly about money. Perhaps it’s the fact that we’ve got Austen next month, but whatever the reason, the economics of 1900-1917 and the value of money began to intrigue me. Below, I’ve converted the inheritance money into today’s dollars.

• 1st Inheritance: occurs in Part One from Cyrus to Charles and Adam

  • Total Amount: $100,000 (in 1900) which is $3.7 million in 2024

    • Adam receives half this inheritance, therefore $1.9 million

• 2nd Inheritance: occurs in Part Three from Charles to Adam and Cathy

  • Total Amount: $100,000 (in 1911) which is $3.3 million in 2024

    • Adam receives half this inheritance, therefore $1.7 million.

• (Adam loses most of his money: Part Four (a)

  • Total Amount left: $9,000 (in 1911) which is $297,000 in 2024)

• (Cal gives the business money he’s made: occurs in Part Four (b)

  • Total Amount: $15,000 (in 1917) which is $370,000 in 2024

    • Adam is given all & rejects it, Cal burns it)

• 3rd Inheritance: occurs in Part Four (b) (i.e. Part Five) from Cathy to Aron

  • Total Amount: $100,000 (in 1917) which is $2.5 million in 2024

    • Presumably, Adam, and then Cal, receives this full amount since Aron is dead

Now, what’d I notice?

First, this is a lot of money. In today’s dollars, Adam inherits $3.6 million by the time his sons are 11 years old. This isn’t an inheritance to simply help you reroof your house. This is an inheritance that changes your entire life.

Secondly, therefore, the sheer magnitude of these freely given gifts, which come to Adam throughout his life, make me think of grace. How do we talk about this 3-fold inheritance within an effusively Bible-alluding narrative?

Thirdly, how do we talk about this money as regards how it was earned and who lives off of it?

Suppose it were true - Adam, the most rigidly honest man it was possible to find, living all his life on stolen money. Lee laughed to himself - now this second will, and Aron, whose purity was a little on the self-indulgent side, living all his life on the profits from a whorehouse. Was this some kind of joke or did things balance so that if one went too far in one direction an automatic slide moved on the scale and the balance was re-established? (Chapter 54, pg 583)

Is this the inverse of the question: why do bad things happen to good people? Is the question here: how can good things come from bad people?

(And of course this has me thinking about Middlemarch, and how Mr. Bulstrode earned his living.)

Discussion Questions:

Alright, now for the last section from today’s final East of Eden post, below are some ways to keep the conversation going:

• Touch on any of the themes we’ve been tracking throughout:

  • Time

  • Biblical Storylines

    • Samuel as prophet

    • Adam as first man

    • Cal and Aron (& Adam and Charles) as Cain and Abel

  • Broader Biblical Themes

    • death and resurrection

    • water

    • Mark of Cain

  • Fatherhood/Motherhood

  • Names

  • Evil/Monsterness

  • Power

  • Appearance vs. Reality

  • Fairy Tale & Myth⁴

• What themes were you tracking that I wasn’t?

• Thoughts on Steinbeck as author and narrator? As in, what did it do to the story to not have a fictional narrator?

• Thoughts on the multigenerational and full-life aspect of this story. The best example of this type of 3-generation, full-life story from our Reading Revisited booklists is Kristen Lavransdatter. Compare these narratives.

• Who is the father of Cal and Aron?

  • Options: Charles? Adam? Both (Adam is the father of one twin, Charles is the father of another twin)??? Another option I am not thinking of.

  • Does it matter?

  • Compile your evidence! Discuss whether you think Steinbeck wanted to make their paternity ambiguous or whether he gave us enough evidence to make their paternity clear.

• Cathy’s evilness.

  • First, do you agree that she was pure evil? (I can be persuaded, goodness knows this character is a nightmare to comprehend in all senses of that word.)

  • If so, what was Steinbeck “doing” with this pure evil character? I.e. What do you think of his “theory of monsters,” which we have also been calling a “chemistry hold”?

  • If the “Mark of Cain” is a preserving mark (as Lee emphasizes), how did it preserve Cathy?

• Lee’s parent’s story.

• Timshel.

• Any fun thoughts on driving an old Ford? Any Great Gatsby enthusiasts who want to make some fun connections?

• Which scene was most memorable? Saddest? Most triumphant?

• Share a favorite passage or quote.

Well, go forth and carry this book with you. May it have nourished your soul, and made you a better Man. Timshel.

(A quick note before we move on to say: thank you. I can’t adequately express what a joy it is to write with all of you. These are the dialogues and this is the fun, which books are meant to create between people. Thank you, and I’m so grateful we all get to do this together.)

And now…it is a truth universally acknowledged that next up on the reading docket is none other than…Pride and Prejudice! Can’t. wait. Come back tomorrow for the reading schedule from a woman who is, I assure you dear reader, quite half so handsome as Jane, and at least half so good humored as Lydia, and furthermore has added something more substantial to herself through the improvement of her mind by extensive reading, our own Hannah Suire. Hannah will be leading us through this Austen favorite, and I’m so excited to see what she has in store for us!

Until next time, keep revisiting the good books that enrich your life and nourish your soul.

In Case You Missed Previous East of Eden Posts:

• East of Eden - Part One by Jessica Risma

• East of Eden - Part Two by Jessica Risma

• East of Eden - Part Three by Jessica Risma

• East of Eden - Part Four by Jessica Risma
  

In Case You Missed Other Posts:

• Reading Revisited ep.5 - The Remains of the Day with Kelsie Hartley, Hannah Suire, Brittney Hawver, and Jessica Risma

• June Bookshelf

• Reading Revisited ep.4: Hannah’s Bookish Bio with Kelsie Hartley and Hannah Suire

• Revisiting Asher Lev by Brittney Hawver

A Few Reminders:

• If you are wanting to get in on the in person or virtual community please contact us!

• Here is the whole list of this years book selections

• Book lists from previous years can be found here.

• Instagram

*As always, some of the links are affiliate links. If you don’t have the books yet and are planning to buy them, I appreciate you using the links. The few cents earned with each purchase you make after clicking links (at no extra cost to you) goes toward the time and effort it takes to keep Reading Revisited running and I appreciate it!

1. The roots of this begin earlier in classic antiquity.

2. Certainly with Medieval writing if you want an easy “cheat” to figuring out what to pay attention to, simply take the page numbers or line numbers and divide by 2. Whatever is in the middle, is central to the work. And this tradition has been copied or played with or echoed in most subsequent great works of literature.

3. I certainly would have loved to test this theory through authorial intent, through reading all there is from Steinbeck about this work, but I didn’t have the bandwidth to search through external sources. Additionally, from what Kelsie has shared with me from her reading of A Journal of a Novel, I’m not sure Steinbeck would have told us: “Your literate and understanding man will take joy of finding the secrets hidden in the book almost as though he searched for treasure, but we must never tell anyone they are here. Let them be found by accident. I have made the mistake of telling my readers before and I will never make that mistake again.”

4. I have very lazily used both of these terms almost interchangeably. They are not the same. But I did not take the space to tease that out here, so much time and so little to do. Wait a minute. Strike that. Reverse it. For a great discussion on “myth” defined as “an origin story,” listen to Angelina Stanford’s Literary Life podcast episode 60: Why Read Pagan Myths? (Shout out to one of our subscribers,

Catie

, for reminding us of this excellent episode.) And for a discussion on fairy tales: Stanford’s Why Read Fairy Tales? episode.