Mary is John’s sister. She is an athletic child, in fact the best athlete in the county, and wishes desperately to be a boy. She grows out of this desire eventually, but one of John’s clearest memories of his childhood is helping his sister figure out how to be a boy.
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Mary Steinbeck Character Timeline in East of Eden
The timeline below shows where the character Mary Steinbeck appears in East of Eden. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 23
The narrator recalls that his sister Mary wanted desperately to be a boy. She was always athletic, and once when Uncle Tom...
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Chapter 31
On his way back from the house, Adam stops at the Steinbeck’s house. Little Mary and John peek out through the door at him—the reader now knows that the occasional...
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Chapter 46
John Steinbeck, the narrator, tells a story about how he and sister Mary, when hatred of Germans had reached a fever pitch, harassed and insulted one of Salinas’s...
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