East Of Eden

In the novel, East of Eden by John Steinbeck, Catherine Ames is introduced to the reader as a monster and as time goes on, she possesses both animal like and monster qualities.

As Catherine she gets older and wiser, she gets more evil and displays

her monster and animal like characteristics. She knows she is powerful

and indestructible. She manipulates and tricks many people in her

life pushing them to go to the last resort... death.

Catherine (Cathy) shows her evilness and her monster like behavior

in many scenes throughout the book. Steinbeck illustrates Cathy as

being a monster in the quote, "I believe there are monsters born

in the world... It is my belief that Cathy Ames was born with the

tendencies, or lack of them, which drove and forced her all of her

life," This shows that Cathy used this to her advantage by making

people uneasy, but not so uneasy that they would not run away from

her. Cathy was born with an innocent look that fooled many; she had

golden blond hair, hazel eyes, a thin and delicate nose, and a small

chin to make her face look heart shaped. According to the town Cathy

lived, Cathy had a scent of sweetness, but that is just what Cathy

wanted the town to see and think when Cathy planned her kill. On page

114-115, "The fire broke out... the Ames house went up like a

rocket... Enough remained of Mr. and Mrs. Ames to make sure there were

two bodies." Cathy had set the house on fire and broke into the safe

to steal the family's money. As the investigators scoped the place,

they noticed that the bolts stuck out and there were no keys left in

the locks. They knew it was not an accident. Cathy's body was never

found, but the town assumed that she died. "If it had not been for

Cathy's murder, the fire and robbery might have been a coincidence."

Steinbeck, again, portrays the reader that Cathy is a monster on page

242, "When I said Cathy was a monster it seemed to me that it was so."

Steinbeck is reassuring the reader that Cathy is a monster and with

the evidence before and after this statement. For example, Cathy later

changes her name to Kate and runs a whorehouse. While she runs the

house, she takes pictures of all the important male individuals in the

town to later send to their spouses and families. Cathy plans to send

the pictures whether they caused trouble or not.

As Cathy's character evolves, Steinbeck changes his description

from a monster to an animal. "Her head jerked up and her sharp teeth

fastened