Series: East of Eden
Episode: 2, “Cathy”
Based on:East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Setting: Massachusetts and Connecticut in the 1890s
Main characters: Cathy Ames, Adam Trask, Charles Trask and Thomas Edwards
Episode 2 reveals the past of the injured woman whom Adam has taken into his home to nurse back to health. Moving between Cathy’s recovery and her earlier life, it shows her escaping controlling men using both deception and violence. Adam believes he is in a position to protect her, while Charles suspects Cathy is manipulating Adam.
Cathy conceals her identity
The doctor believes Cathy will survive, but her skull is cracked and she needs constant care. He prescribes morphine and warns the brothers to administer it cautiously due to its addictive qualities. Sheriff Giles asks her to write answers because she can barely speak. She appears unable to remember her identity or the attack and stays on at the farmhouse, where Adam nurses her devotedly.
Charles is suspicious of her story and questions how she can be certain they have never met if she has lost her memory. Later, Cathy privately admits to Adam that her memory is intact. She suggests she is protecting someone she loves, which leads him to imagine that her father might have hurt her. She asks him to keep her secret, particularly from Charles, and tells him he may call her Cathy.
Her teacher and her father
Brief childhood flashbacks suggest early sexual abuse in Cathy’s childhood. The indistinct memories provide context for Cathy’s distrust of men and determination to control her life. As a teenager in Massachusetts, she hopes to become a teacher, although neighbours dismiss her education as an indulgence and assume that she will marry as would be expected of a girl of her background.
Behind her dutiful behaviour, Cathy learns to shape the male attention shown to her. A young man gives her jewellery, which she claims to have found. Her teacher, James Grew, pursues an inappropriate relationship with her and writes frequently with notions of marriage. Cathy ends their arrangement and threatens to expose him by revealing his letters. He visits her home at midnight, but her father sends him away. The next day, Grew has killed himself.
Bill Ames suspects something happened. Declaring Cathy his property, he assaults her while demanding the truth. Outwardly, she feigns obedience, and he congratulates himself on imposing authority. Privately, though, she is plotting to escape. Cathy burns down the house, thereby killing her parents, and stages signs of a struggle in the carriage house to suggest she too was a victim.
Edwards becomes another trap
Cathy asks a sex worker in Lowell to teach her the trade, agreeing to hand over half her earnings. Later, she changes her name to Catherine Amesbury and approaches brothel owner Thomas Edwards with a fabricated story about a dead father, a struggling mother and a mortgaged farm back home.
Edwards is taken in by her story and quickly becomes her lover. He pays for an apartment in her name. His attachment soon turns possessive. Cathy keeps him insecure about his sexual performance; missing money and jewellery deepen his suspicions, and he decides to have her followed. On their anniversary, he forces her to drink despite her aversion to alcohol. She insults him, reveals her sexual experience and reveals that she knows he has had her followed.
The next morning, she claims to remember little. Edwards later catches her preparing to leave and insists on taking her to Connecticut. He reveals that he knows about the Amesbury fire and the missing daughter. He gives her a savage beating and leaves her for dead, an event that results in her her arriving at the Trask farmhouse.
Marriage and betrayal
Back at the farm, Charles wants Cathy to move on. He tells her that a suitcase containing money and jewellery was found nearby and hints that she had revealed information while under the effects of morphine. When she asks why he distrusts her, he suggests they recognise something of themselves in each other.
Cathy tells Adam she will have to leave because Charles does not want her around any more. Adam instead asks her to marry him, promises to ensure her happiness and offer protection. Their wedding causes a major confrontation and rift between the brothers. Charles warns that Cathy will tear Adam apart, but then embraces him, revealing an anger that is fueled by his fear for his brother. Adam decides they will move to California, against Cathy’s objections.
On their wedding night, Cathy says she is not well enough to be a wife to him. Adam agrees to wait and sleep nearby because she claims to be afraid of Charles. She drugs his tea, pretends he accidentally drank her medicine and settles him as he becomes drowsy and passes out. With her husband fast asleep, she seduces and gets into bed with Charles.
Historical and literary details
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, quoted in the episode, first appeared in 1865 with illustrations by John Tenniel. Source: The Lewis Carroll Society
Where to watch
East of Eden is streaming on Netflix.
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