1. Warming up by questioning Steinbeck's first chapters with a Bucket List
Level 1 Bucket: questions for clarity--what's confusing you about the plot?
- Who is the narrator? Is it Steinbeck himself?
- On page __, what do the descriptions of Samuel Hamilton's strengths have in common? Why might Steinbeck emphasize this particular pattern?
"What Would Foster Say?" Bucket
- After being beaten nearly to death by his brother, Adam lies briefly in a stream of water. What would Foster say about the significance of this "baptism"?
3. Discussing your Bucket questions in a Socratic
4. Wrapping up with kudos, questions, and epiphanies
HW:
1. For MONDAY: Bring your laptop to class. Also, be sure to get a portion of your East of Eden reading done over the weekend.
2. For TUESDAY: Read chapters 4, 5, 6, and 7 and complete your next reading ticket.
Thanks, Caroline, for scribing our first East of Eden Socratic!
ReplyDeleteWhat did the Hamiltons have to do with the Trasks?
At some point there will be an answer
Hamilton's living in a totally different time period different landscape and setting
Trasks sounds more out of a mark twain book and not related
The difference of time period with the Hamiltons and Trasks
Cyrus is a civil war veteran in his head, can't be more than a 30-40 year time difference
Cyrus was in civil war and time passed and he had two children and we'll watch them grow up, Samuel had lots of children and we'll watch them grow up
Late 1800s to mid 1900s, 80 year span
Steinbeck is trying to give a timeless story
What is the geography of story?
Hamiltons are in the west and the Trasks are in the east
Is this Steinbeck's narrative or is it an unspoken narrative?
A lot of this has autobiographical sense to it and steineck is writing about himself but it is mixed with fiction and fictional characters
Sometimes be first person and third person narrative
What is the relationship between Alice and Adam?
Adam has feelings for alice, not sure if it is some sexual desire for alice or a want for motherly attention
Could assume it was her softness and she showed affection for him which he didn't get
Adam doesn't know why his mother died and towards Alice, she is his adopted mother
Describing adams disdain for a military lifestyle that his father brought on and his mother was not in the right state of mind making her kill herself
Page 29
The persons surrounding society shapes the person and how they respond
Did Cryus actually fight in the war?
Did cyrus actually know president lincoln?
He went on some military excursion but was never the level of military he described
He went to war once, got shot, and got discharged
Page 14, “The first time he saw the enemy...”
Page 17, “Timidly he began to tell Alice about his campaign...”
Cryus and samuel hamilton are the two most interesting characters, samuel is very unpolarized and bring people together.
Cryus is very confusing, not sure if he is insane, he deluded but he starts confessing his love for adam and confessing knowledge about charles that something is wrong with him
Sam represents christian god and cyrus represents greek gods
The prevalence of gifts is interesting, help and hurt, how do the gifts in the story shape the story?
Steinbeck pull a sense of irony, charles has all the physical but adam is very weak but forgiving
Adam is lacking in some areas but makes it up in other areas but charles is jealous, steinbeck is trying to build a contrast
“Charles doesn't have anything going for him but his strength and adam is skinny and trying to be loving and kind
The contrast to that is what does everyone see as a gift? Natural athletic ability and that's what we see as a gift
The dad was questioning adam but he was protecting charles and didn’t want to get him in trouble
ReplyDeleteNot just match of strength, charles is quickly intelligent, page 20
Charles has cold calculating heartless intelligence, inte;lignece doesn’t mean something good always
When contrasting good with bad, he has the view intelligence is good and sam as weak boy is bad, he trying to audience relies it is all about how you perceive it and there is always two ways to look at it, the idea of without any bad there can;t be any good, cryus vs. samuel
Samuel is happy and lovable and his wife is uptight, strict, and hard
Steinbeck talks about humans being caught between good and evil, charles is not purely evil so much as not likeable, have both qualities in them
Charles does love his brother but his ego and wants to take over, charles just wants to be treated the way adam is, adam is golden child and good at everything
Difference in a way adam things of their relationship, adam isn’;t superior, charles is just of how his father loves adam more, adam is jealous of the way charles is treated
Adam lives vicariously through charles success
Do you think there is a weird religious parallel between adam, charles, and cyrus?
There's a lot of christain beliefs that stem from the idea that what strengths your faith and your connection is the struggle, a life of being beat down but not let go of it, there are parallels to be drawn as a fatherly figure, god is a father, adam and charles are the sons, cain and abel, embody two very different yet similar paths
Why did steinbeck give them two seperate mom’s
It sets of betrayal at the end of chapter three, when adam got beat b y charles, alice said you dont know whats going on underneath, having the separation of adam’s mother is that adam has a longing for a motherly figure in his life.
Every person has biological family, in christian tradition is you have your own family but you also has god, just like everybody else is related
Is California “Eden” and the east is east?
A parallel between mother and son - adam
Cyrus relationship with alice, she can’t ask questions, interesting to analyze relationship
Contrast between samuel and cyrus