East of Eden, Chapter 8 quiz

Questions and answers

1. 1

   Question 1. How does the narrator describe Cathy Ames at the beginning of Chapter 8?

   • Correct answer: As a person born with a psychological deformity comparable to a physical one
   • As a brilliant young woman misunderstood by society
   • As an ordinary girl who gradually turns to crime
   • As a troubled child shaped by an abusive household

   The narrator argues that Cathy was born with a malformed soul, comparing moral deformity to physical birth defects.

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2. 2

   Question 2. What incident occurs when Cathy is ten years old?

   • She secretly runs away to Boston by railroad and is punished with a whipping when discovered
   • Correct answer: She is found in the carriage house with two older boys and escapes blame for the encounter
   • She learns the combination of the safe on a visit to her father's tannery
   • She invents a rumor that destroys the reputation of her Latin teacher in the community

   At ten, Cathy is discovered in the carriage house with two boys of about fourteen, her wrists tied with a rope. The boys say she "had started the whole thing," and the narrator has said that at ten she "began coldly to experiment"; but the boys are whipped and sent to a house of correction, and Cathy escapes blame.

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3. 3

   Question 3. What happens to Cathy's Latin teacher, James Grew, after his midnight visit to the Ames house?

   • He loses his teaching position and moves away
   • He reports her behavior to her parents
   • Correct answer: He kills himself with a shotgun
   • He becomes her ally in planning her escape

   James Grew, the Latin teacher, comes wild to the Ames door after midnight and is found the next morning dead by shotgun before the church altar. Cathy then plants a rumor that he had been in trouble in Boston.

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4. 4

   Question 4. How does Cathy's mother perceive her daughter?

   • She is jealous of Cathy's beauty and intelligence
   • She suspects Cathy of criminal behavior from an early age
   • She holds Cathy responsible for the carriage house incident
   • Correct answer: She believes Cathy is a normal, good child like any other

   Cathy's mother believes her daughter is like any other good child, unable to see past Cathy's outward appearance of innocence.

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5. 5

   Question 5. What puzzles George, the chief of the volunteers, as he rakes through the ruins of the Ames house?

   • The front door is unlocked, and its lock has entirely disappeared
   • The kitchen door's hinges carry evidence of recent oiling
   • Correct answer: Neither door lock contains a key, although both bolts are extended
   • A bloodstained ribbon lies partially burned beneath the kitchen steps

   George finds the kitchen and front-door locks with no keys in them. When the coroner suggests Bill Ames took the keys out, George asks, "On the inside?" and holds up the locks: "Both bolts stuck out."

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6. 6

   Question 6. What function does Cathy's physical beauty serve in the chapter?

   • Correct answer: It disguises her true nature, causing people to assume she is innocent
   • It secures her a teaching position despite her lack of preparation
   • It disarms her father completely, so that he never suspects anything
   • It persuades her teachers to overlook her mediocre record in grammar school

   The narrator says, "As though nature concealed a trap, Cathy had from the first a face of innocence." People who see that face assume she is innocent, as the town does after the carriage house and again after the fire.

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7. 7

   Question 7. What is found in the carriage house after the fire?

   • The door keys from the house, dropped in the straw
   • A ransom note asking money for Cathy's safe return
   • Cathy's straw traveling basket packed with her best clothes
   • Correct answer: Signs of a struggle, blood, a hair ribbon and a cross

   The crowd finds "signs of a struggle" (a broken box, a shattered carriage lamp, scraped marks, straw on the floor) and a quantity of blood, and the constable turns up a blood-splattered blue hair ribbon and a cross with red stones. Earlier the chapter shows Cathy filling a jelly jar with a pullet's blood and hiding it under the kitchen steps. The tannery safe has been robbed, and the town comes to believe Cathy was murdered.

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8. 8

   Question 8. Which of these events actually occur in Chapter 8 of East of Eden?

   • The narrator opens with a philosophical meditation on innate evil.

     Happened

     The chapter opens with the narrator's belief that "there are monsters born in the world to human parents": people born without kindness or conscience.

   • The two boys from the carriage house are whipped and sent to a house of correction.

     Happened

     At ten Cathy "began coldly to experiment" with the power of sex; the boys say she started it and that each paid her five cents, but they are whipped and sent to a house of correction.

   • Cathy's father confronts her about her true nature.

     Didn't happen

     Mr. Ames "kept the little flame of suspicion to himself"; when he does lecture Cathy, it is about her duty to go back to school.

   • The Ames house burns in the night, and two bodies are found in the ruins.

     Happened

     The chapter shows her preparations (papers stuffed around the foundation, oiled hinges and a stiff lock, kerosene in the basement); the fire breaks out at about three in the morning, and two bodies are found in the ruins.

   • Cathy is arrested by the local sheriff after the fire.

     Didn't happen

     Cathy has vanished and is believed murdered; the constable instead brings in a confused man who confesses to everything, and the judge sees that his confession is nonsense.

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9. 9

   Question 9. Which of these statements about Cathy Ames in Chapter 8 are accurate?

   • Cathy's mother sees that Cathy is unlike other children.

     Didn't happen

     Because Cathy is an only child, her mother "thought all children were like her own"; it is her father who feels Cathy is not like other children.

   • Cathy's Latin teacher kills himself after a frantic midnight visit to the Ames house.

     Happened

     The narration ties James Grew's rise and collapse to Cathy, though "no relationship was even suspected"; after a frantic midnight visit to the Ames house he is found shot dead before the church altar.

   • Cathy announces at sixteen that she will no longer attend school.

     Happened

     Soon after her sixteenth birthday Cathy stays in bed and tells her mother she is "never going to school again."

   • Cathy shows genuine remorse after the fire.

     Didn't happen

     The chapter never shows Cathy after the fire: she has vanished, and the town comes to believe she was carried off and murdered.

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10. 10

    Question 10. What does 'malformed' mean as used in: 'may not the same process produce a malformed soul'?

    • Physically weak and fragile
    • Correct answer: Abnormally or defectively shaped
    • Highly developed and refined
    • Deeply spiritual and contemplative

    Malformed means abnormally shaped or structured. Steinbeck uses it to describe Cathy's soul as having a birth defect — a moral deformity present from the start.

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11. 11

    Question 11. What does 'incontrovertible' mean as used in: 'the lie is suddenly faced with an incontrovertible truth'?

    • Correct answer: Impossible to deny or disprove
    • Only partly supported by evidence
    • Easily forgotten or unimportant
    • Open to several interpretations

    Incontrovertible means impossible to deny. The narrator says most liars are tripped up either by forgetting their own lies or by meeting a truth that cannot be disputed.

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12. 12

    Question 12. What does 'preternaturally' mean as used in: 'she was preternaturally alert in some directions'?

    • Slowly and reluctantly
    • Correct answer: In a way that goes beyond what is natural
    • With obvious theatrical exaggeration
    • By careful study and practice

    Preternaturally means beyond what is ordinary or natural. The narrator says Cathy was unnaturally alert to other people's impulses while remaining blind in other ways.

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