A fascinating and intriguing novel, The Pearl shares the story of a man named Kino, and how greed can affect his life forever. When Kino finds the “Pearl of the World”, it affects everyone, not just him. John Steinbeck, the author of this novel, uses intricate literary devices in order to give the reader the sense of greed that engulfed Kino and his surroundings. Literary devices such as foreshadowing, symbolism, and characterization all help this story come to life. Kino’s family, his personality, and his town, all changed when one pearl landed in Kino’s hands.
To begin, Kino, a brush house Mexican-Indian was poor but satisfied with his life before he found the pearl. Kino lived with his wife and son, which was all he needed. Living off of ancient traditions, when Kino has his pearl the greed begins to creep into him and the music of evil plays in his head and foreshadows what the pearl will lead to. “He smelled the breeze and he listened for any foreign sound of secrecy or creeping, and his eyes searched the darkness, for the music of evil was sounding in his head and he was fierce and afraid”(Steinbeck 35). The pearl, a small yet powerful token, puts Kino on a rollercoaster, that drags his whole family along with him.
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La Paz, his home, was flipped upside down when the pearl was found. Characterization was skillfully used to bring the supporting characters of the story to life. Driving everyone to jealousy, the town was filled with people who had the same drive as Kino. “ The news came to these men, and their eyes squinted and their fingertips burned a little, and each one thought how the patron could not live forever and someone had to take his place”(Steinbeck 22). The doctor, the pearl buyers, and the priest, all going after what one brush house man luckily landed upon. Greed was like a disease, and it was spreading like wildflowers. Kino, his family, and his town are a prime of example of how greed can take over. The Pearl, exquisitely written by John Steinbeck, is a written parable, setting examples for all it’s readers. They show greed at its ugliest, and how they can leave you with nothing. Leaving you with a sense of awareness, this book will make you think twice when given a
The aspect of the John Steinbeck novels, The Pearl and Of Mice and Men, that is most comparable is how, in both books, Steinbeck denies the main characters of each book, Kino and George and Lennie to change their role in life or to beat fate. Steinbeck’s grim outlook of life was perhaps brought on through his early failures and poverty, because all three of the pre-mentioned characters had opportunities to change their fate or role but failed. The elements of discussion are Kino, George and Lennie, a comparison and a contrast.
In the novel, the main character, Kino, goes out to find a pearl in hopes of getting money to pay the doctor to treat Coyotito, his son, who has been bitten by a scorpion. Kino discovers the biggest pearl anyone has ever seen, and believes the pearl will bring nothing but good for him and his family. The pearl does change the lives of Kino, his wife Juana, and Coyotito, but not in the way he had hoped. When the people in La Paz find out about Kino’s pearl, he is visited by a greedy priest and doctor, the deceitful pearl buyers try to scam him into selling it to them for less than it’s worth, and the pearl was almost stolen twice. Kino kills the second thief in self-defense...
At first, the pearl symbolized aa amazing providence. With the discovery of the great pearl, Kino began to have hope for Coyotito’s future and thought of the different possibilities that lead before him. However, as the town found out about ‘“the Pearl of the World”’(Steinbeck, 1947, p. 23), it began to have an injurious effect into Kino’s simplistic life (SparkNotes Editors, 2002). Juana and Kino’s brother began to seek the pearl as a threat rather than a blessing as the pearl began to symbolize and associate more materialistic desires. With Kino’s desire to acquire wealth from the pearl, he altered from a happy and content father into a savage criminal. By Kino’s demonstration of the destruction of innocence from greed and desire, the pearl soon became a symbol of human destruction. Kino’s gluttony shortly leads him to violently mistreat his wife and also to the death of his only son, Coyotito (SparkNotes Editors, 2002). SparkNotes Editors (2002) believed that his greed ultimately isolated Kino from his cultural customs and society. Overall, according to Wheeler (2008), the parable’s moral lesson was that “money cannot buy
To begin with, One of the overarching themes in The Pearl is greed. The book is making a point that greed can ruin a person and even those around them. In the beginning Kino was a kind man with a good family but in a poor financial situation. He finds something of great value and rather than being grateful and giving it up when it had brought unfortunate situations to come into play he keeps it and insists that it will save him and his family. He displays greed and selfishness from this point on.
A pearl is conventionally associated with wealth and prosperity. Like a philosopher’s stone, the pearl is believed to convert sorrows into happiness. Kino, a decent pearl diver and his wife, Juana, along with their son, Coyotito, are a poverty-stricken family until they discover “the greatest pearl in the world.” (p19) With hopes and dreams for themselves and their son’s future, Kino and Juana perceive this pearl to be a resolution for all of their troubles. After finding “the Pearl of the World,” (p22) Kino is plagued with vexation. His greed soon overcomes his benevolence and good intentions. The joint rapacity of Kino and other people precipitates misfortune and violence around him and eventually leads to Coyotito's death. The Pearl highlights
Kino is willing to risk his life and plans to murder the trackers because he is extremely greedy. This parable entitled The Pearl, written by John Steinbeck, teaches readers lessons about life and people. Steinbeck uses a universal struggle with greed to embody his innermost ideas and concerns about life that he conveys in this novel. In conclusion, John Steinbeck meant for his readers of The Pearl to take away a lesson or message from the struggle of greed and avail themselves of applying the lessons or messages to their everyday lives.
In “The Pearl” by John Steinbeck, the theme of “greed as a destructive force” has been shaped strongly throughout the entire book. My thesis statement is that if Kino had the ability to change himself, his life could have also been changed. As written in the book, “The sun was behind them and their long shadows stalked ahead, and they seemed to carry two towers of darkness with them.” (Steinbeck,
“The news came early to the beggars in front of the church, and it made them giggle a little with pleasure, for they knew that there was no almsgiver in the world like a poor man who was suddenly lucky.”(Steinbeck, 22) The book The Pearl exposes human nature as malevolent. Kino becomes corrupt by the pearl, people try to murder for the pearl, and Kino hits Juana over the pearl.
The Pearl by John Steinbeck is a well written novella about a young man named Kino living in poverty with his wife and son. Steinbeck guides us through Kino’s discovery of a pearl that could change everything. When nobody wants to purchase Kino’s pearl, he doesn’t take no for an answer. The finding of the pearl changed Kino very much and not exactly in a positive way. In the end, he throws the pearl out into the ocean to get rid of it forever for it has done no good. The end of the book lead us to the theme that the good comes with the bad. John Steinbeck uses imagery, music, and nature to convey the theme that great fortune brings negative things to his readers.
The pearl is a book full of meaning, but is also a very contradicting book. The book contains characters that change overtime. They show changes from good to evil or to normal to good. Steinbeck is trying to show the world is full of different people that can be driven to evil or can drive others to good. In the pearl Steinbeck expressess this by giving his character changing personalities according to the pearls temptation. The pearl projects what Kino fears, wants, and loves. As the characters express their moments of good, gray, and evil the scene of the book adds to their character traits. Steinbeck expresses the difference between good and evil through his characters and plot. He shows the evil in greed and good in kindness.
“When news of Kino’s great find-the Pearl of the world-spreads through the small town-no one suspects it's power to deceive, to corrupt, to destroy.”(Steinbeck cover) In the novella, The Pearl, written by John Steinbeck, Kino, a poor fisherman, and his native wife, Juana, desperately need money to cure their child, Coyotito. Overachieving their goal, Kino finds the “Pearl of the world”(Steinbeck 21), and becomes overjoyed with the thought of wealth for their family. With their social class being much lower than others because of their native race/heritage, the only way to cute their son is to be prosperous and be of the same social class as others. Becoming more well known in their town, Kino's family is put in more danger as people try to steal and con kino out of the
The balance between greed and modesty is an important struggle in life. Without modesty a person will be overcomed by corruptness and evil; without greed a person will never want to achieve more than what is necessary to life. The relationship of Kino and Juana in “The Pearl” portrays this human struggle in the form of a story. Kino represents a human’s hunger to achieve more, while Juana's role in the story is to represent the modest reaction to the human greediness. Juana’s does not have a modest reaction to Kino’s greediness in the beginning of the story, a modest reaction in the middle of the story that is not heard, and a modest reaction at the end of the story that is heard.
“Kino's face shone with prophecy” (Steinbeck 26) as he continues to fantasize of what the pearl can bring."My son will read and open the books, and my son will write and will know writing. And my son will make numbers…” (Steinbeck 26) Kino is aware of the importance of education and where it can lead. He continues to muse over how ”these things will make us free because he will know- he will know and through him we will know." (Steinbeck 26) Kino’s thoughts are not just for his freedom, but for the freedom of his family and his people. The reader gets a sense that the people in the city have been taking advantage of the village for years. Kino explain how he feels “trapped as his people were always trapped, and would be until, as he had said, they could be sure that the things in the books were really in the books.” (Steinbeck 30) Kino believes once the pearl makes him wealthy, which leads to Coyotito’s education, they will no longer be “trapped” by the insecurity of
In Matthew 26:16 it says, “For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?” Truly, the question posed in this quote is one that applies to the main character, Kino, in John Steinbeck’s The Pearl. Steinbeck composes a narrative, in which the characters are driven by unrelenting greed, resulting in disastrous consequences. Steinbeck is an exemplary author in the genre of tragic, fictional literature. Indeed, Steinbeck effectively utilizes elements of fiction including characterization, symbolism and conflict in order to convey the theme that misery is inevitable when a person’s insatiable greed precedes it. Steinbeck capably uses characterization to show the reader how the characters evolve as the story progresses, while demonstrating how their insatiable greed led to their downfall. Likewise, Steinbeck utilizes symbolism in the story to give seemingly mundane objects a more profound and substantial meaning, that foreshadow the outcome of the characters’ unquenchable greed. Furthermore, Steinbeck effectively uses different types of conflict, namely internal and external, to communicate to the reader the struggles that follow a greedy heart. Through the use of these elements of fiction, Steinbeck is able to show how greed affects these characters and the unavoidable misery that follows. By reading this essay, the reader will understand how Steinbeck uses various elements of fiction to demonstrate the devastating effects of a person’s greed in a world where the evil in people is often far greater than the goodness in people.
In John Steinbeck’s The Pearl, the author shows how a sudden fortune can affect and influence a person’s behavior and life. In this story, Kino- a native living in a village called La Paz- has a content life of poverty, but when he acquires an immediate amount of wealth, he finds that he is overcome with greed and violence. After he discovers “the Pearl of the World” (pg. 22), Kino feels that he has power and authority because of his new found wealth. He uses it recklessly with selfish and desire, and he ends up losing even more of what he started with, including the death of his first-born son.