Cathy isn't "just a monster" in the book, either
I've been so confused about people's opinions online about Cathy! I read East of Eden for the first time this spring. I thought Steinbeck was super heavy handed in showing Cathy reacting to patriarchal oppression and control at every turn. I thought he was very obviously critiquing Eve as the embodiment of sin and evil and showing how ruthless a woman has to be to have any semblance of control and agency over her own life, and Cathy is still beaten by her father, taken advantage of by boys older than her and her teacher, nearly beaten to death by Mr. Edwards, given little choice in marriage and moving across the country (her past line of work nearly just killed her, she was desperate?), unable to access abortion (like we see her trying to voice what she wants or take things into her own hands before resorting to the more "evil" acts of shooting Adam and leaving her children.) Steinbeck's descriptions of other women, especially Adam's and Charles's mothers, especially drove home for me that he was thinking about women's lack of agency and I'm not just reading the book with a 2026 viewpoint.
Cathy takes it too far in many situations, she continues to be violent, manipulative, and cruel in situations where she doesn't need to be, and I'm not saying everything was justified. I am NOT saying Cathy is a feminist hero or a "good person." But I am confused when people say she was written as the embodiment of pure evil, she is cruel for no reason, she is only a villain and the Netflix adaptation adding any backstory or sympathy to her character is untrue to the book. I know that Steinbeck wrote that she was born a monster to human parents, etc., but then everything else he wrote contradicts that. I don't claim to know Steinbeck's intention but I do know what he wrote. At the least, I don't think it's a stretch to see a critique of patriarchy in East of Eden. Cathy is maybe a symbol of the consequences of patriarchy, the monstrous actions it can lead people to.