Crime and Sexuality in the 1955 and 1981 Adaptations of John Steinbeck ’ s East of Eden
villainy plausible ” ( Schwartz 22 ). In Kazan ’ s film , she is not actually evil but instead morally ambiguous because , due to the limitations of censorship , the viewer does not observe the sexual manipulation , the drug use , and the other awful things she does in the novel . However , there is nothing ambiguous about Harvey Hart ’ s Cathy Ames . Hart introduces Cathy when she is a child ; her mother discovers her engaging in sex-play with two boys in the barn . Mrs . Ames is on the verge of notifying the constable about “ those two little criminals ” having “ forced ” her daughter . “ And I will see those two little criminals in the Massachusetts State Prison ,” she warns their fathers . The aim of Mrs . Ames is that the boys “ must be made to pay .... To pay .... Bare !”
The viewer of the miniseries at first probably considers Cathy to just be sexually curious . However , in the three paragraphs immediately before Steinbeck introduces Cathy , he talks about humans who are physically monstrous as well as those who are mentally or psychically so . He elaborates on the “ inner monster ” who has no conscience . Steinbeck also speaks to Cathy ’ s strange appeal in that “[ e ] ven as a child she had some quality that made people look at her , then look away , then look back at her , troubled at something foreign . Something looked out of her eyes , and was never there when one looked again ” ( 72 ; ch . 8 ).
As Hart ’ s Cathy smiles while her mother makes her watch the two boys being whipped by their fathers , the viewers for the first time hear Cathy ’ s music box-chimed leitmotif , the children ’ s ditty “ Put Your Little Foot ( Right There ).” Whether intended to exemplify Andrew ’ s concept of borrowing or not , what comes to mind for some viewers is the Academy Award-nominated performance of Patty McCormack , who , at age 10 in 1956 , chilled audiences in the eponymous role
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