East of Eden, Chapter 39 quiz

Questions and answers

1. 1

   Question 1. Where is Cal when the Salinas morality raid picks him up?

   • Walking Aron home from evening church
   • Working late behind the post-office counter
   • Correct answer: Watching a fan-tan game at Shorty Lim's
   • Dealing cards in a downtown back room

   Cal is only watching, not gambling, when the raid scoops him into the tank overnight. The chief is embarrassed to find him there in the morning.

   Read the passage
2. 2

   Question 2. What does Adam say instead of punishing Cal after the jail night?

   • That Cal must leave school at once
   • Correct answer: That he has failed Cal as a father
   • That Lee will handle the whole matter
   • That Aron should have been watching him

   After a long silence Cal demands to be punished, and Adam answers that he has failed him. The talk becomes a first attempt to know his son as a person.

   Read the passage
3. 3

   Question 3. What does Adam confess about his own past during the breakfast talk?

   • Correct answer: He was a prisoner for nearly a year
   • He served on a chain gang in Salinas
   • He spent a winter hiding in King City
   • He once robbed a bank with Charles

   Adam says he was a prisoner for nearly a year for just being there, and that when he escaped he robbed a store and stole clothes. Cal can hardly believe it.

   Read the passage
4. 4

   Question 4. What future plan does Cal offer Adam for himself and Aron?

   • They will sell the Salinas house and travel
   • Cal will quit school and take a town job
   • Both boys will train for the ministry
   • Correct answer: Cal will run the ranch and pay Aron's college

   Cal asks to run the ranch after school and says he could make enough to pay Aron's way through college. He does not want Aron told that Adam already knows the college plan.

   Read the passage
5. 5

   Question 5. On her Monday rounds, where does Kate go first?

   • Dr. Rosen's consulting room
   • Bell's candy store for chocolates
   • Correct answer: The Monterey County Bank vault
   • Minnie Franken's beauty parlor

   She is admitted behind the bars of the safe-deposit vault and spends fifteen or twenty minutes there before window-shopping along Main Street.

   Read the passage
6. 6

   Question 6. What does Kate show Cal when he stares at her hands?

   • A wedding ring she still refuses to remove
   • A burn mark from the house's kitchen stove
   • A scar she got the night she shot Adam
   • Correct answer: A crooked finger bound up for arthritis

   Both hands are bandaged. She unwraps the oily bandage from her right forefinger, holds the crooked finger under the lamp, and names the disease as arthritis.

   Read the passage
7. 7

   Question 7. What name does Kate call Cal while boasting that she fooled everyone?

   • Adam, as if he were his father
   • Correct answer: Charles, as if he were that brother
   • Aron, as if the twins were one boy
   • Caleb, using the name Lee taught him

   Kate slips into the name Charles while boasting that she fooled everyone who thought they could tell her what to do. Cal corrects her: his name is Caleb, the one who got to the Promised Land.

   Read the passage
8. 8

   Question 8. What does Cal decide about himself before he leaves Kate's gray room?

   • Correct answer: That he does not have to be Kate
   • That he will stay and work in her house
   • That Lee was wrong about inherited evil
   • That he must tell Aron the truth that night

   After Kate closes against his question about a missing secret, Cal is certain he is his own. He was afraid he had her in him; he now says that if he is mean, it is his own mean.

   Read the passage
9. 9

   Question 9. Which of these events actually occur in Chapter 39?

   • Cal is arrested while watching fan-tan at Shorty Lim's.

     Happened

     The raid scoops Cal up while he is watching the fan-tan game, and the embarrassed chief finds him in the tank the next morning.

   • Adam admits he was a prisoner for nearly a year.

     Happened

     At breakfast Adam tells Cal, "I was a prisoner for nearly a year for just being there."

   • Cal tells Aron the truth about Kate at breakfast.

     Didn't happen

     Aron leaves for school before the talk, and Cal tells Adam that Aron does not know about their mother and that he would not dare to tell him.

   • Lee tells Adam that Cal has found a girl.

     Didn't happen

     Lee only asks Cal whether he has found a girl, and Cal says no; when Lee asks Adam what has got into Cal, Adam answers, "He knows about her."

   Read the passage
10. 10

    Question 10. Which of these events actually occur during Cal's visit to Kate?

    • Kate waits behind a privet and asks Cal what he wants.

      Happened

      In the eighth week Kate is standing behind a tall ragged privet in her yard and asks him coldly, "What do you want?"

    • Kate takes Cal into a windowless gray lean-to.

      Happened

      She leads him through her room into a new lean-to that has no windows, dark gray walls, a gray carpet and a hooded lamp.

    • Cal tells Kate he hates her and will ruin her.

      Didn't happen

      As he leaves, Cal tells her, "I don’t hate you," and adds that he is glad she is afraid.

    • Kate writes a letter for Cal to take home to Adam.

      Didn't happen

      Kate writes nothing; she cries "Get out!" and Cal slams the door behind him and runs from the house.

    Read the passage
11. 11

    Question 11. What does 'eructation' mean as used in: 'At intervals Salinas suffered from a mild eructation of morality'?

    • A long season of quiet mourning
    • A secret agreement among officials
    • Correct answer: A belching or sudden outburst
    • A carefully argued legal reform

    Eructation is a belch; Steinbeck uses it satirically for the town's periodic, mild eruption of public virtue against gambling.

    Read the passage
12. 12

    Question 12. What does 'heresy' mean as used in: 'Cal tried to absorb this heresy'?

    • Correct answer: A belief that shocks what one holds sacred
    • A joke told to lighten a tense room
    • A rumor spreading through the town
    • A rule posted on the jail-house wall

    Cal can hardly believe Adam's claim that he was once a prisoner who later robbed a store. The story contradicts the father Cal thought he knew.

    Read the passage
13. 13

    Question 13. What does 'gingerly' mean as used in: 'Kate settled herself gingerly among the thick down cushions'?

    • With the stiffness of military drill
    • Correct answer: With extreme care to avoid pain
    • With open delight in being watched
    • With anger meant to frighten Cal

    Gingerly means very cautiously. Kate's bandaged, arthritic hands make even sitting down and removing her gloves an ordeal.

    Read the passage