If Netflix’s East of Eden has proved anything, it’s that some people apparently think a woman can’t be sympathetic and evil at the same time. But the argument that Hollywood is too afraid to let Cathy be evil is overlooking the fundamental message baked into John Steinbeck’s novel. Let’s not get it twisted: Cathy is presented as a monster. She abandons her family, she kills her parents, she manipulates everyone around her to get what she wants, all of which she does with zero empathy. As the New Yorker put it, Cathy is Steinbeck’s “most evil character”. Netflix’s retelling, led by Zoe Kazan, doesn’t shy away from showing the uglier sides of Cathy. But it also expands on the factors that may have shaped her, including reframing the sexual assault she experienced as a child. This narrative decision has proven divisive among fans of Steinbeck’s 1952 epic. For the critics, it’s an unforgivable sin. As one Redditor said, “There are characters you can humanise, there are ones you can demonise. But when a story is a deep dive into good and evil in a society you can’t flip them. It ruins her character and it especially ruins the climax of the books with the sons.” View this post on Instagram A post shared by Liza Libes (@pensandpoison) Over on Instagram, writer Liza Libes added, “Netflix destroyed East of Eden… Cathy is not supposed to be sympathetic. Steinbeck tells us that Cathy was ‘not like other people, never was from birth.’ In fact, she was born with a ‘malformed soul.’” On the other side of the coin, defenders of Kazan’s interpretation have pointed to Steinbeck’s own attitudes towards women. There’s a long-standing belief that Cathy was inspired by his second wife, Gwyn Conger, following their bitter divorce in 1948. Steinbeck himself alluded to the connection in letters to his editor without naming names, while literary critics have argued that his resentment towards Gwyn influenced the character. But I think both arguments are missing a crucial point about East of Eden. Yes, Cathy is described as a monster from birth, but later in the novel, the narrator begins to question whether she really is one. Even John Steinbeck questioned whether Cathy was really a monster Credit: Netflix Speaking to Film Shrine, Sepita Hatami, who holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from Western University and researches the portrayal of women and violence in literature, explained why Cathy is far more complicated than she initially appears. “Early in the novel, the narrator describes her as a monster, almost as though she was born without the ability to feel empathy. Later, however, he admits how difficult it is to understand her,” Hatami explained. She referenced an important passage from Chapter 17, which reads, “When I said Cathy was a monster it seemed to me that it was so. Now I have bent close with a glass over the small print of her and reread the footnotes, and I wonder if it was true. “The trouble is that since we cannot know what she wanted, we will never know whether or not she got it. If rather than running toward something, she ran away from something, we can’t know whether she escaped. “Who knows but that she tried to tell someone or everyone what she was like and could not, for lack of a common language. Her life may have been her language, formal, developed, indecipherable. It is easy to say she was bad, but there is little meaning unless we know why.” As Hatami highlighted, “This leaves readers with questions about how much of Cathy’s behaviour comes from her nature, her experiences, or her own choices.” Why making Cathy more human doesn’t betray East of Eden Credit: Netflix The argument that making Cathy more sympathetic somehow betrays East of Eden really starts to fall apart when you consider the book’s most important word: “Timshel”. The Hebrew word, translated in the novel as “thou mayest”, is central to Steinbeck’s exploration of good and evil. It represents the idea that human beings aren’t destined to be one or the other. They have the freedom to choose. As Hatami pointed out, “Steinbeck places great importance on the ability to choose between good and evil. If Cathy is evil from birth, how much choice does she really have?” If anything, this new interpretation stays true to the core theme. I’m not saying every creative decision should be beyond criticism. There’s a valid argument to be made that giving Cathy a clearer backstory risks losing some of what made her so unsettling. “Part of what makes her unsettling in the novel is that readers never fully understand her. A sympathetic backstory may help us understand her behaviour, but it could also take away some of that uncertainty,” Hatami continued. Credit: Netflix Maybe it does for some viewers. But that doesn’t automatically mean Cathy’s no longer a compelling villain, or one who is unrecognisable from the source material. And as Hatami argued, “Giving her a more human background could make her actions even more disturbing, since we would have to consider the choices she makes rather than simply accept that she was born a monster.” Kazan lets us see what happened to Cathy, and then makes us watch as she continues to inflict pain on others. Almost as if a story about the freedom to choose between good and evil might have something to say about that. Timshel, anyone? For all the latest film and TV updates and hot takes, like our Facebook page. Featured image credit: Netflix Post navigation Next story
