Fiction set in past eras often portrays women as either damsels in distress or early feminists determined to challenge the gender roles of their time. You can find monstrous men galore, individuals who think they own women and take advantage of them left and right, while women are frequently reduced to being innocent victims of their time. And amid the ongoing debate surrounding Christa Pike’s death sentence, watching East of Eden, which shows that women can be monstrous too, is definitely refreshing. It forces us to confront a reality that fiction often shies away from: women are fully capable of their own profound monstrosity.