East of Eden, Chapter 9 quiz

Questions and answers

1. 1

   Question 1. Why is Mr. Edwards interviewing girls in large numbers at the start of Chapter 9?

   • A new state law has closed the small-town hotels
   • A police raid has shut down his Boston office
   • Correct answer: A train wreck and a revival have cost him three units
   • A rival has opened a competing circuit in New England

   A train wreck killed two units of four girls each and a preacher's revival converted a third, leaving him three units to rebuild from the ground.

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2. 2

   Question 2. What name does Cathy give when she comes to Mr. Edwards's office?

   • Correct answer: Catherine Amesbury
   • Catherine Ambrose
   • Catherine Ashworth
   • Cathy Ames

   She calls herself Catherine Amesbury, a name close to her real one, Cathy Ames.

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3. 3

   Question 3. Why does Mr. Edwards fail to see through Cathy's story about the mortgaged farm?

   • She shows him papers proving the debt is real
   • He trusts every girl who brings him a story of debt
   • He has never heard a story like it before
   • Correct answer: He is weak from illness and already drawn to her

   About eighty percent of the girls who came to him claimed a mortgage, and his unvarying rule was to believe nothing they said, but a sleepless night and sudden desire override the rule.

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4. 4

   Question 4. What is Cathy's method for controlling Mr. Edwards once he has installed her in the brick house?

   • She openly threatens to leave him for another man
   • Correct answer: She keeps him off balance by seeming always about to go
   • She refuses to accept any gift or money from him
   • She demands that he leave his wife and children

   She stays slightly dissatisfied and slightly unavailable, arriving home glowing, hinting at rivals, and soothing him only when his rage comes close.

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5. 5

   Question 5. What finally makes Cathy drop her act in front of Mr. Edwards?

   • He confronts her with the newspaper clipping
   • Correct answer: He insists that she drink a glass of champagne
   • He has her followed on one of her shopping trips
   • He refuses to pay the household bills any longer

   He presses champagne on her hoping wine will loosen her tongue; it does, and the mask comes off completely.

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6. 6

   Question 6. What does the agency Mr. Edwards employs send him?

   • A record of her arrests in the city of Boston
   • A list of the men who visit her house
   • Correct answer: An old newspaper account of a small-town fire
   • A letter written by her mother in the country

   The clipping about the fire tells him where Catherine Amesbury really came from, and the fear it produces turns his love into cruelty.

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7. 7

   Question 7. What does Mr. Edwards mean to do when he takes Cathy to Connecticut?

   • To shut her up again in the little brick house
   • To abandon her there without money or clothes
   • To take her back to her home town to face the law
   • Correct answer: To whip her and put her to work on his circuit

   He means to whip her and move her from town to town until she is of no use, then throw her out; the killing rage is something he does not know is in him.

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8. 8

   Question 8. How does Steinbeck describe the origin of Mr. Edwards's cruelty?

   • Correct answer: As the precipitate of fear mixed into his love
   • As a habit learned from years in a brutal trade
   • As the shadow cast by his own guilty conscience
   • As the residue left behind by wounded pride

   Steinbeck uses a chemical image: real fear was mixed into his love, and cruelty is what precipitates out of that combination.

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9. 9

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

   • Mr. Edwards gives Cathy the brick house he first rented for her.

     Happened

     Mr. Edwards "rented a sweet little brick house for her and then gave it to her" and crowded it with luxuries.

   • Cathy mortgages the house for as much money as she can get.

     Happened

     Catherine did not sell the house, but "she mortgaged it for every penny she could get."

   • Mrs. Edwards confronts Cathy at the brick house.

     Didn't happen

     The chapter never shows Mrs. Edwards meeting Catherine; to her, her husband is "in the importing business," and she blames his moods first on his stomach and then on business reverses.

   • Cathy poisons the champagne Mr. Edwards keeps in the house.

     Didn't happen

     Catherine refuses the champagne from the first ("It makes me sick"); when he forces it on her, she drinks glass after glass and turns on him.

   • Mr. Edwards has Cathy followed without her knowing how often.

     Happened

     After she changes the locks, "Mr. Edwards had her followed—and she did not know how often."

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10. 10

    Question 10. Which of these details belong to the chapter's account of Mr. Edwards?

    • His two sons were entered on the books at Groton as infants.

      Happened

      His two boys "were entered on the books at Groton when they were infants", as befits a respectable Boston family.

    • He eventually dies at sixty-seven, choking on a chicken bone.

      Happened

      The narrator looks ahead to his end: "he died at sixty-seven of strangulation on a chicken bone," a rich man by then.

    • He finally tells his wife the truth about his business.

      Didn't happen

      To his wife he is "in the importing business," and after the beating "No question was ever asked of him."

    • He whips the girls who were converted by the revival preacher.

      Happened

      He "took the heavy quirt from his suitcase, and whipped the girls unmercifully", but they only begged for more whipping.

    • He expands his operation into the large hotels of Boston.

      Didn't happen

      "He never sent his girls into the cities"; his ideal stand was a small town with a mortgaged hotel.

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11. 11

    Question 11. What does 'quirt' mean as used in: 'took the heavy quirt from his suitcase'?

    • A leather-bound ledger of accounts
    • A metal flask carried for travel
    • Correct answer: A short riding whip with a leather lash
    • A folding pocket knife with a bone handle

    A quirt is a short whip. Mr. Edwards packs it whenever he goes out to inspect his circuit, and he uses it on Cathy in the Connecticut countryside.

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12. 12

    Question 12. What does 'physics' mean as used in: 'When neither herb teas nor physics cured him she was helpless.'?

    • Prayers offered on behalf of the sick
    • Correct answer: Medicines, especially purgatives, given as remedies
    • Rest cures prescribed by a family doctor
    • The science of matter, motion and energy

    In older usage a physic is a medicine or purgative. Mrs. Edwards tries the ordinary home remedies of her day and none of them touch what is actually wrong with her husband.

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13. 13

    Question 13. What does 'precipitate' mean as used in: 'the precipitate from the mixing of these two is cruelty'?

    • Correct answer: The solid left when two solutions combine
    • A steep drop or sheer fall
    • A warning sign of coming trouble
    • A sudden and reckless decision

    Steinbeck borrows the chemistry sense of the noun: cruelty is what settles out when fear and love are mixed together.

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