Rhetorical Analysis

East of Eden Rhetorical Analysis Excerpt

John Steinbeck’s purpose of the excerpt with Alice and Cathy subsists on Cathy that finds a place to get away from her enemies, being lonely and hated by the world. In order to make his purpose expedient he writes, “Alice was her friend, always waiting to welcome her to tininess. All this so good-so good that it was almost worthwhile to be miserable. But good as it was, there was one more thing always held in reserve. It was her threat and her safety. She had only to drink the whole bottle and she would dwindle and disappear and cease to exist. And better than all, when she stopped being, she never would have been. This was her darling safety.” He claims by saying this that, Cathy intended to succeed through imagination and escapement, where she became small and would enter another dimension to befriend Alice from Alice in Wonderland. John’s intended audience signifies people interested in the novel Alice in Wonderland, or a suggestion would be someone who has a compassionate imagination in becoming lost, to escape such problems, such as Cathy. John Steinbeck, author of East of Eden, published in 1953, in the excerpt of Cathy and Alice in Wonderland, asserts that Cathy has a way to escape.
Cathy endured a difference in her at a young age and began to have something off about her. She discovered that she could make anyone do whatever she wanted them to. Without being able to feel emotions, she thinks of all adults or as of people are all against her. This thought gives her the conclusion of manipulating people. For example, she drove her Latin teacher to commit suicide by tantalizing with his affections. As of in the future, she robs her families safe of money and then murders her parents in a house fire. After she mysteriously disappears, she runs away to entrance a man named Mr. Edwards who owns many “whorehouses” and she becomes his mistress. Mr. Edwards does become suspicious of her and suspects she is being dishonest with him and she admits she despises him after getting drunk. He shortly finds out about how her parents being killed in a house fire and how Cathy had disappeared. Being completely furious, Mr. Edwards takes her out of town and beats her. Leaving her for death, she ends up on Adam and Charles Trask’s door step.
Adam accompanied Cathy till she was better and he fell in love with her. Charles was not blinded by her but seen straight through her and knew she consisted of evil because they remained alike. Charles attempts to tell Adam to forsake her, but instead he marries her. The only reason she agrees to abides on getting safety from Adam against Mr. Edwards. Once Cathy drugs Adam and she becomes pregnant by Charles, Adam moves away with her, without knowing what she had done but instead thinks they’re his kids. When she realizes she is pregnant, she tries to abort her unborn twins. Once a doctor sees this, he threatens to press charges if she tries to again. She continues to carry her children and confesses to Adam that she intends on leaving when she can and after the children come into existence. The time comes, and Adam struggles to stop her but instead she shoots him. Cathy runs off, changes her name to Kate, and joins a whorehouse. The owner Faye becomes attached to her and thinks of her as her own child. Once she gets close enough to her Faye gave Kate her will. Kate then poisons Faye, slowly killing her. When Faye passes away, Kate inherits the “house” and makes it into a much sinister place.
Years later, Adam finally finds her and she reveals her inducements for the first time. She took comfort in using people and she had proclaimed to him, “I could make them do whatever I wanted; when I was half-grown I made a man kill himself.” She had also exposed pictures she had taken of her clients to prove that the entire population of humans possess a hypocrite. Later on, Adam comes back to her after Charles dies to bestow $50,000 left to her by the man himself. Kate doesn’t believe him whatsoever; she becomes perplexed that Adam would try to be sincere to her. Once Adam scrutinizes Kate for who she really is, he feels sympathy for her. He utters to her, “And the men who come to you here with their ugliness, the men in the pictures — you don’t believe those men could have goodness or beauty in them. You see only one side, and you think — more than that, you’re sure — that’s all there is.”
Kate, almost being figured out by a departed employee that worked at the house named Ethel, for killing Faye. She becomes deranged at the thought of it and builds her “gray room.” This here obtained a place where she could escape (coming back to Alice in Wonderland). Faye’s murder soon comes out and Kate tremors of being found out, so she determines to frame Ethel and her security Joe for the crime, the only people that know about what she fulfilled. Shortly after she built her gray room, she’s visited by one of her sons; Cal. Kate has a conversation with him and becomes appalled by his goodness and personality once he initiates his love for his father Adam. Once Cal leaves, he indicates that Kate is quietly afraid. She loses purpose and desire to live, specifically when her second son, Aron was taken to her by Cal, and outraged by her, especially for what she was. This is when Kate finally pitied herself. Signing her will to Aron and not Cal, she commits suicide. Referring back to the excerpt, “Gingerly she finished the chain out from her bodice, unscrewed the little tube, and shook the capsule into her hand. She smiled at it. ‘Eat me,’ she said and put the capsule into her mouth. She picked up the tea cup. ‘Drink me,’ she said and swallowed the bitter cold tea. She forced her mind to stay on Alice— so tiny and waiting. Other faces peered in from the sides of her eyes—her father and mother, and Charles, and Adam, and Samuel Hamilton, and then Aron, and she could see Cal smiling at her. He didn’t have to speak. The glint in his eyes said, ‘You missed something. They had something and you missed it.’ She thrust her mind back to Alice. In the gray wall opposite there was a nail hole. Alice would be in there. And she would put her arm around Cathy’s waist, and Cathy would put her arm around Alice’s waist, and they would walk away— best friends—and tiny as the head of a pin. A warm numbness began to creep into her arms and legs. The pain was going from her hands. Her eyelids felt heavy, very heavy. She yawned. She thought she said or thought, ‘Alice doesn’t know. I’m going right past. Her eyes closed and a dizzy nausea shook her. She opened her eyes and stared about in terror. The gray room darkened and the cone of light flowed and rippled like water. And then her eyes closed again and her fingers curled as though they held tiny breasts. And her heart beat solemnly and her breathing slowed as she grew smaller and smaller and then disappeared— and she has never been.”
Coming back to Alice in Wonderland, Kate did escape. All her life she was a troubled human being. She was afraid of people and that’s why she succeeds at controlling them. She only saw one side; she saw the evil and the unaccepted side. She as well thought that everyone was out to get her. At such a young age she thought that everyone was against her, and as she got older everyone did indeed begin to do so. It was her who made it all seem this way. It was her pride and stubbornness that she couldn’t seem to unburden. So, she escapes her troubles through a childhood fantasy. That was her way to departure.