# Netflix's Cathy finds freedom in Steinbeck's text > Zoe Kazan's adaptation gives Steinbeck's most reviled character the humanity critics denied her for seventy years. - Title: Netflix's Cathy finds freedom in Steinbeck's text · TIME - Summary: Zoe Kazan's adaptation gives Steinbeck's most reviled character the humanity critics denied her for seventy years. Netflix's East of Eden reinterprets Cathy… - Keywords: east of eden, netflix, zoe kazan, florence pugh, john steinbeck, cathy ames, adaptation, feminist interpretation, character study, Netflix's, Cathy, finds - Source: TIME — https://time.com/article/2026/10/02/east-of-eden-netflix-cathy - Author: Judy Berman - Published: 2026-10-02T20:51:42.176+00:00 - Read time: 4 min - Topics: east of eden, netflix, zoe kazan, florence pugh, john steinbeck, cathy ames, adaptation, feminist interpretation, character study ## Midcentury critics saw pure evil When John Steinbeck published East of Eden in nineteen fifty-two, male reviewers unanimously condemned Cathy Ames as evil incarnate. This publication called her a vicious slut; the New York Times crowned her the most vicious female in literature. > most vicious female in literature ## Her crimes seemed unforgivable Cathy drives a man to suicide, kills her parents as a teenager, sleeps with her husband's brother, abandons her twins, poisons a brothel madam for her fortune, then pursues a career of sadomasochism, blackmail, exploitation and violence. ## What if she was just trapped? But what if Cathy, born into nineteenth century womanhood, had simply been chasing freedom at any cost? Preventing a suicide meant becoming a child bride. Escaping her father meant risking beatings. Fleeing her husband meant becoming destitute and hunted. ## Kazan's adaptation takes that view Zoe Kazan's seven-episode Netflix series proceeds as if Cathy were pursuing freedom rather than personifying evil. It's a feminist project that gives a female character the same humanity as a male one, grounded firmly in Steinbeck's original text. ## Florence Pugh grounds the character Florence Pugh's mesmerizingly self-possessed performance makes Cathy refreshing because she remains firmly grounded in Steinbeck's Cathy. Kazan saw no need to invent explanations for her behavior because they were already abundant in the original text. > I think the text supports my reading ## The opening reframes her entirely The series opens with a flash-forward to Cathy crawling brutally beaten toward the farmhouse that will change lives for generations. She intones Steinbeck's own words about monsters: everyone is normal to himself, and to a monster, the norm must seem monstrous. > everyone is normal to himself ## Her childhood trauma shapes everything In her earliest scene, five-year-old Cathy follows a boy into the woods for candy. The implied consequence is sexual assault that cements her misanthropic worldview. Pugh called it the most beautiful love letter to protecting her as a child. > the most beautiful love letter to protecting her as a child ## Violation drives her need for control As Cathy develops agency, her choices become more selfish and violent. What her abusers share is that they try to possess her, to constrict her freedom, a nightmare for anyone but especially someone whose bodily sovereignty was violated in childhood. ## She escapes by any means necessary When Cathy marries Adam and becomes pregnant with twins, she escapes by wounding him physically and destroying him emotionally. She does the same to Faye, the brothel madam. But she is still just trying to get free: the only freedom in this world is economic freedom. > The only freedom in this world is economic freedom ## She runs a fair brothel As Kate, Cathy manages the brothel she inherits from Faye with surprising fairness. Steinbeck wrote that if girls followed her rules exactly, she would protect them. She never rewarded them and punished offenders only twice before removing them. ## Her sadism targets hypocrisy Cathy's sadism is reserved for hypocritical men who wield power, preach virtue and demand respect in public, then come to the brothel to indulge in degradation. It reflects the knowledge of good and evil she gleaned at age five from her bite of the fruit. ## Steinbeck himself questioned her evil Steinbeck later admitted he wondered if Cathy was truly a monster. He wrote that since we cannot know what she wanted, we will never know whether she escaped. Her life may have been her language, formal, developed, indecipherable. > Her life may have been her language, formal, developed, indecipherable ## Women see what male critics missed Kazan and Pugh get closer to Cathy because they understand firsthand how much going through life in a female body can feel like having your most cynical assumptions about human nature constantly reaffirmed by experience. ## She mirrors the story's other selfish men As Cathy's suicide approaches, she is drawn in parallel with Charles and her son Cal. Both come off as better people, though nurture accounts for the difference more than nature. Charles has means to sequester himself. Cal has Lee and his father's blessing. ## No one ever gave her permission No one has ever given Cathy the permission that Adam, on his deathbed, gives Cal to try to live a good life. She never had the chance to become anything other than what circumstance forced her to be. ## Her final moment is with her lost self Cathy's final hallucinated encounter is a tearful embrace with the five-year-old in the Alice in Wonderland frock, the last version capable of overcoming her cold nature. Pugh releases a lifetime's worth of masked and suppressed emotion in the scene. ## She becomes Alice, not Satan Kazan reinforces that Cathy is more like Eve than Satan. Yet this East of Eden leaves us with an alternate image: Cathy as Alice, chasing the white rabbit of her innate appetites down a hole from which she can never emerge. ## Key takeaway Netflix's East of Eden reinterprets Cathy Ames not as pure evil but as a woman pursuing freedom under impossible constraints, grounded in Steinbeck's own text rather than invented backstory.