In East of Eden, what is the lesson that Adam Trask learns that frees him from Kate and allows him to love his sons?

After Samuel Hamilton dies, Adam attends his funeral in Salinas, and after a few drinks in a bar he decides to visit Kate’s brothel. Upon arriving, he finds that he can see her for the first time: he notes her “wide-set eyes narrowed with cruelty” and “protruding belly,” physical changes that seem to symbolize her evil nature coming to the surface. All around him is Kate’s domain, and what a place it is—the girls are manipulated by drugs supplied by Kate, and the men who come are humiliated and blackmailed. Under the influence of alcohol, Kate toys with him; she simultaneously degrades him and makes promises that Adam would have once been susceptible to. When Adam appears to be unmoved and only smiles despite her best efforts, she plays her trump card: that she had slept with Charles, and so the twins might not be Adam’s sons. Ironically, this effort to break Adam only prompts an epiphany:

“‘It wouldn’t matter—even if it were true,’ he said. ‘It wouldn’t matter at all.’”

To this, Kate is enraged. She orders her bodyguard to beat Adam and screams at him:

“‘I hate you. I hate you now for the first time. I hate you! Adam, are you listening? I hate you!’”

Her childish response of fear and loathing only cements Adam’s newfound resolution.

This visit has laid one of Adam’s greatest fears to rest: he had worried that he could not love his sons, only to realize that he will love them even if they are not his. Samuel’s concept of timshel, the idea that a man has a right to choose his path, doubtlessly influenced his realization.

As far as freeing him from Kate, that is more complex. Adam has overcome many of his obstacles: he has seen Kate for who she is and rejected her, an action that allows him to move forward. And yet he never refers to her as Kate in this scene, only as Cathy, the name that he knew and loved her by. That Adam “smiled at her as one might smile at a memory” as he took his leave implies that he still sees Cathy as a person separate from Kate. Adam’s freedom, as such, is limited to Kate; whether he has escaped his idealistic view of Cathy is less certain.

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...

nouns - what do you call the person who passes the trophies to the prize giver/presenter?

The person who gives out the trophies to the winners are called award presenters. So what do u call the person who passes the trophies to the presenter? Thanks!

Is 'efficate' a word in English?

I routinely hear the word "efficate" being used. For example, "The most powerful way to efficate a change in the system is to participate." I do not find entries for this word in common English dictionaries, but I do not have an unabridged dictionary. I have checked the OED (I'm not sure if it is considered unabridged), and it has no entry for "efficate". It does have an entry for "efficiate", which is used in the same way. Wordnik has an entry for "efficate" with over 1800 hits, thus providing some evidence for the frequency of use. I personally like the word and find the meaning very clear and obvious when others use it. If it's not currently an "officially documented" word, perhaps its continued use will result in it being better documented.

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