Evil In John Steinbeck's East Of Eden

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In John Steinbeck’s East of Eden, the plot was filled with evidence of Cathy’s evil. She murders, runs a brothel, and abandons children. But, in spite of this, Cathy was not born completely evil; she had power over her destiny and she chose to be evil.
Cathy committed a number of murders in her lifetime, but the two she committed when she was the youngest were the most depraved ones. When she was sixteen she seemed to be the perfect daughter: had ambitions for her future, smart, and obedient. But, when her parents angered her, she wanted revenge. Secretly, she fakes her own kidnapping and murder. Cathy locks the doors to her house, sets it on fire with her parents sleeping peacefully inside, and fakes her own death. She had gathered supplies to make it seem as though someone had broken into her father’s business before she burned down her house. All she leaves were, “a blood splattered blue hair ribbon and a cross with red stones in the corner.”(88). This was an action she had thought through and planned, Cathy chooses to do this in cold …show more content…
When Cathy gets married to Adam she told him she didn’t want children. He ignores her and told her she will change her mind, the setting of East of Eden was when women didn’t have any power. She takes matters into her own hands, and decides she needs to leave after being forced to give birth. Adam locks her in a room when she tried to leave, when he unlocked the door, “She stood three feet away. In her right hand she held his .44 Colt, and the black hole in the barrel pointed at him… She shot him. The heavy slug struck him in the shoulder and flattened and tore out a piece of his shoulder blade.”(202). Cathy could have shot and killed him, but instead she chose to shoot him in his shoulder. She let him live on purpose, a very deliberate act of good out of someone who’s majority of acts are evil. Leaving him, she also left behind her
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