East of Eden X -- Nature versus Nurture

In comments to the Monster post, James brings up the issue, though not with these particular words, of nature versus nurture.  I guess I don't have my thumb adequately enough pressed upon the pulse of world discussion to know how hot-or-not this discussion is, but it crops up all the time in lit-talk.  Obviously, this applies directly to East of Eden, chapter 8 inasmuch as Cathy is a monster by nature.  Maybe that's another issue that needs to be addressed on the "Continuum of Monstrosity" -- a third dimension, or z-axis, showing whether the monster became so in its life and by influence of its surroundings or happens to be innately monstrous.

May I recommend a side project?  I think we should compile a manner of classification for monsters in literature and accurately project them on the continuum, including the third axis for nature/nurture.  I could probably draw it up by hand, but computer imaging would work better.  Stephen, are you reading this?  How hard would this be?  In the meantime, anyone reading this, we would need to compose questions and tiers delineating degrees of monstrosity in order to grid them on the image....  Thoughts?

So what do you think (back to nature/nurture and Cathy's monstrosity)?  Can you really be born monstrous, evil, terrible?  This is a big deal for many religions.  Are we born pure?  Are we born evil?  This is the dilemma--or perhaps point of contention--of, or between, many religions regarding baptism.  Where does the evil come from then, if not inborn?  Was Satan, Lucifer, the Son of the Morning, eternally evil, or did he become so?  I'm not trying to create a theological discussion or debate here.  When it comes down to it, in order to keep the discussion truly applicable to the source text, we need to tend within Steinbeck's own demonstrated belief system.  However, I don't think we need to limit ourselves!

So, chapter 8.

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Reading Questions
Chapter 8.1, 8.2

1. Simple and direct: if you want evidence that Steinbeck intends Cathy to be evil by nature, these two sections are loaded!  Consider how she, and entirely passive-aggressively, frames the two boys for sexual assault.  Sure, they're not innocent, but holy cow!  Can a person be that horrible and from that young?  Her father doesn't think so.  Does his passivity--or, at best, though still, I think, guilty by omission, silence--incriminate him?  Could he have NURTURED his daughter into something wholesome, or at least less evil?  Is a person born like Cathy capable of gaining some sort of purity?

Chapter 8.3

1. I read this first paragraph and, forgive me, can't help but think of young Tom Riddle of Harry Potter fame requesting a teaching position from Dumbledore.  Why does she really want to be a teacher? (Do you suppose Rowling was in any way influenced by Steinbeck?)
2. James Grew reminds me of Kurt Cobain. 
3. Mr. Ames just ticks me off.  Maybe he reminds me of me.  Like him, I'm not confrontational.  Might it be also within me to ignore such impressions and cause, inadvertently and by laziness or cowardice, such destruction?  I hope not.  And is this not the great power of great literature, to reflect us upon ourselves?
4. Steinbeck writes in the last paragraph of 8.3, "That was Cathy's method."  WHAT?  What is it that is Cathy's method?

Chapter 8.4

So I'm writing these questions and discussion points as I'm re-reading the book for the first time in three or four years (has it been that long?), and HOLY CRAP! I forgot about this brilliant exchange and cross-textual reference:

• "What's that book you're hiding?" [her mother asks.]
• "Here!  I'm not hiding it."
• "Oh!  Alice in Wonderland.  You're too big for that."
• Cathy said, "I can get to be so little you can't even seen me."
• "What in the world are you talking about?"
• "Nobody can find me."
• Her mother said angrily, "Stop making jokes.  I don't know what you're thinking of.  What does Miss Fancy think she is going to do?"
• "I don't know yet," said Cathy.  "I think I'll go away."
• "Well, you just lie there, Miss Fancy, and when your father comes home he'll have a thing or two to say to you."  (Yeah, right!  That coward?)

1. Keep this exchange in mind as you learn more and more about Cathy.  Is she really just a girl lost down the rabbit hole?
2. Is Cathy without love or empathy?  Consider just the page or so since the Wonderland dialog.  Was it foresight that prevented evidence of childhood in her bedroom or careful erasure that left it empty after he departure?
3. Interesting about Mr. Ames: the very thing that makes him a coward in confrontation is also--or is it? -- the very thing that makes him "a very good man in a crisis."
4. The whipping scene makes me think--or, I guess, it's Cathy's reticence and utter control throughout the ordeal--of Denzel Washington's character in the movie Glory.  Thoughts?  Certainly, she's no martyr; there's no glory in her resistance, but still....

chapter 8.5

1. "We've all of us got a little of the Old Nick in us," says Cathy's father.  Who is Old Nick?

chapter 8.6 

• "Now look here, Mike," he said, "you shouldn't do a think like that.  If that poor fellow had been just a little smarter you might have got him hanged."
• "He said he did it."  The constable's feelings were hurt because he was a conscientious man.
• "He would have admitted to climbing the golden stairs and cutting St. Peter's throat with a bowling ball," the judge said.  "Be more careful, Mike.  The law was designed to save, not to destroy."