East of Eden, Chapter 12 quiz
From East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Chapter 12 of East of Eden: at the 1900 boundary, memory gilds a century of war and theft while the crowd cheers a clean new deck of years.
12 questions · about 13 minutes
Questions and answers
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Question 1. What structural role does Chapter 12 play in East of Eden?
- It continues Samuel Hamilton's farm story from the earlier chapters
- Correct answer: It is an intercalary pause that marks the great boundary of 1900
- It follows Adam and Cathy on their long journey west to California
- It recounts Adam Trask's childhood years in Connecticut
Chapter 12 is a short intercalary that marks a great boundary called 1900 and steps away from both families to talk about national memory.
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Question 2. According to the narrator, what happens to the nineteenth century in memory?
- Old men claim the whole century never happened at all
- People remember it only for a handful of famous inventions
- Historians keep a scientifically accurate record of every year
- Correct answer: It grows more rich and meaningful the farther back it was
The narrator says what happened was muddied by how folks wanted it to be, more rich and meaningful the farther back it was.
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Question 3. What does the narrator say the country got from beating the British?
- Correct answer: A burned White House and ten thousand widows on pension
- A lot of western land that nearly doubled the nation's size
- Freedom of the seas and a halt to impressment
- A secure northern border and a rebuilt navy
They beat the British, but it did not do much good: a burned White House and ten thousand widows on the public pension list.
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Question 4. How does Chapter 12 describe the Mexican War?
- As the war that brought plantation slavery to an end
- As a crusade meant to spread democracy south
- Correct answer: As a painful picnic that gained land and trained generals
- As a defeat that permanently shrank U.S. territory
The soldiers went to Mexico for a kind of painful picnic that nearly doubled the country's size and trained generals for the Civil War.
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Question 5. How is slavery defended in the chapter's mock argument?
- As a temporary measure allowed only in wartime
- As a scientific claim about climate and labor
- As a biblical duty to convert the enslaved
- Correct answer: As property bought in good faith, like a horse
The argument is: if you bought a slave in good faith, why not keep him? Next they will say a man cannot have a horse.
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Question 6. What complaint returns as a refrain in Chapter 12?
- That the young have abandoned church, scripture, and manners
- That rain has abandoned the Salinas Valley for good
- Correct answer: That strawberries and desire no longer taste as they did
- That machines have ruined every formerly quiet town
Twice the chapter says strawberries don't taste as they used to (later: will never taste so good again) and the thighs of women have lost their clutch.
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Question 7. How does the narrator treat the claim that the new century has no rot?
- He endorses the claim and makes it the chapter's closing moral
- Correct answer: He gives it to the crowd and undercuts it with the refrain
- He proves the claim with a catalog of new inventions
- He says Samuel Hamilton is the only man who believes it
The boosters slam the lid and say there is no rot on this clean new hundred years; the darkened strawberry refrain answers them, and the narrator does not join the cheer.
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Question 8. Which of these actually occur in Chapter 12 of East of Eden?
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The narrator marks 1900 as a great boundary.
Happened
The chapter opens: "You can see how this book has reached a great boundary that was called 1900."
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The narrator catalogs the automobile, the airplane, and the telephone.
Didn't happen
No inventions are named; the chapter looks back at the old century's wars, slavery, "boom and bust," and thieves.
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He names a burned White House and ten thousand widows.
Happened
Of the war with the British, the narrator says the country got "a burned White House and ten thousand widows on the public pension list."
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The narrator returns to the Trask farm in Connecticut.
Didn't happen
No character from the story appears; the whole chapter is the narrator's essay on the turn of the century.
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Great public thieves pick the pockets of everyone who has a pocket.
Happened
Among the century's troubles the narrator lists "Great public thieves" who "picked the pockets of everyone who had a pocket."
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Samuel Hamilton argues with Liza about the future of the valley.
Didn't happen
Neither Samuel nor Liza appears; the narrator speaks about the whole country, not about one family.
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Question 9. Which claims fit Chapter 12?
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A strawberries-and-thighs refrain appears twice.
Happened
The line about strawberries and "the thighs of women" comes once in the middle of the chapter and again as its last sentence.
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The old men welcome the new century with joy.
Didn't happen
Old men unsure they would live past the boundary "looked forward to it with distaste," feeling that sweetness and virtue were gone.
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The Mexican War is called a painful picnic.
Happened
The narrator says the soldiers "went to Mexico and it was a kind of painful picnic."
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Cathy and Adam are married by a justice of the peace.
Didn't happen
No character from the story appears in Chapter 12; the wedding is told in Chapter 11.
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The crowd wants the lid slammed on the stinking century.
Happened
Voices eager for 1900 say a man will have clean hands "once we get the lid slammed shut on that stinking century."
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The narrator describes a Civil War battle in detail.
Didn't happen
No battle is described; after the arguments over slavery the war gets a single image, "like a man scratching at his own face and bleeding into his own beard."
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Question 10. What does "vagued" mean as used in: "A man’s mind vagued up a little, for how can you remember the feel of pleasure or pain"?
- Correct answer: Became hazy or indistinct
- Grew suddenly angry at the past
- Filled up with patriotic pride
- Became sharply focused on duty
Vagued up means the mind went indistinct: you can remember that you had feelings, not the feel of them.
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Question 11. What does "secreted" mean as used in: "History was secreted in the glands of a million historians"?
- Correct answer: Produced and discharged as a gland does
- Publicly debated on the Senate floor
- Erased from the official record by censors
- Hidden away in a locked archive
Secreted is the biological verb: history is imagined as a substance oozing from historians' glands rather than as a clean record.
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Question 12. What does "stacked" mean as used in: "It’s not stacked, and any bastard who deals seconds from this new deck of years"?
- Crowded with too many national holidays
- Built of stone like a new capitol building
- Piled in a warehouse for later sale
- Correct answer: Arranged dishonestly, as a prepared deck of cards
A stacked deck is pre-arranged to cheat; dealing seconds is another card cheat. The boosters claim the new century is a fair deal.
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