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East Of Eden

In the novel, East of Eden by John Steinbeck, Catherine Ames is introduced to the reader as a monster and as time goes on, she possesses both animal like and monster qualities.
As Catherine she gets older and wiser, she gets more evil and displays
her monster and animal like characteristics. She knows she is powerful
and indestructible. She manipulates and tricks many people in her
life pushing them to go to the last resort... death.

    Catherine (Cathy) shows her evilness and her monster like behavior
in many scenes throughout the book. Steinbeck illustrates Cathy as
being a monster in the quote, "I believe there are monsters born
in the world... It is my belief that Cathy Ames was born with the
tendencies, or lack of them, which drove and forced her all of her
life," This shows that Cathy used this to her advantage by making
people uneasy, but not so uneasy that they would not run away from
her. Cathy was born with an innocent look that fooled many; she had
golden blond hair, hazel eyes, a thin and delicate nose, and a small
chin to make her face look heart shaped. According to the town Cathy
lived, Cathy had a scent of sweetness, but that is just what Cathy
wanted the town to see and think when Cathy planned her kill. On page
114-115, "The fire broke out... the Ames house went up like a
rocket... Enough remained of Mr. and Mrs. Ames to make sure there were
two bodies." Cathy had set the house on fire and broke into the safe
to steal the family's money. As the investigators scoped the place,
they noticed that the bolts stuck out and there were no keys left in
the locks. They knew it was not an accident. Cathy's body was never
found, but the town assumed that she died. "If it had not been for
Cathy's murder, the fire and robbery might have been a coincidence."
Steinbeck, again, portrays the reader that Cathy is a monster on page
242, "When I said Cathy was a monster it seemed to me that it was so."
Steinbeck...