Connections

I have finished the first part of East of Eden. So the characters are all introduced. There was a brief introduction of the Irish American family the Hamiltons in California. Yet the first part mainly focuses on the Trask brothers in Connecticut. A new character is introduced by the name of Cathy Ames. The narrator describes her as "a monster". Compares her personality to birth defects. Explaining that she was born without a heart. This flaw is concealed by her immense charm and uses sex as a power above all. She is truly evil, she killed her parents in a house fire and fled to become a prostitute. The murder is later discovered by Mr. Edwards who runs the prostitute ring. After being charmed by this Lilith (biblical reference) he comes to consciousness about her character and attempts to kill her. Yet Kathy lives and drags her broken body to the Trask door, charms the eldest brother. The first part ends with the hasty marriage.
Choosing East of Eden has been the best decision. I love the Steinbeck's character introductions. For every character he introduces into the plot, he gives a good 1-2 chapters on their life story. That is probably why the book is so thick and will be near to impossible to finish by next Friday. My favorite character introduction is of Cathy. She is such an evil character but Steinbeck doesn't describe her as a "a selfish tramp" as most authors would at that time. She is portrayed as cunning and manipulative with a shell of innocence to cover her heartless soul. Steinbeck introduces the chapter about Cathy with "I believe there are ,monsters born in the world to human parents." The next paragraph continues to "And just as there are physical monsters, can there not be mental or psychic monsters born? The face and body may be perfect, but if a twisted gene or a malformed egg can produce physical monsters, may not the same process produce a malformed soul?". There is more depth to this female character than other books around that time. I predict that Cathy will turn the plot around.