The Role Of Women In The Pearl By John Steinbeck

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What is the true cost of fortune and success to one’s future? John Steinbeck assesses this idea through a novel, The Pearl, that focuses on the dominant and submissive roles of men and women. Throughout The Pearl, Steinbeck tells a tale of a poor man, Kino, who desires to provide a better life for his wife and child by selling a tremendously valuable pearl. However, in this quest to sell the pearl, the family encounters various life-threatening situations, transforming this newfound possibility of wealth to a burden in the family’s future. The role of men in this piece of literature outweighs the role of women by far since there are only two female characters in the entire story. They, as well as the other women in their environment, are expected to be subservient to men socially and economically. In John Steinbeck’s The Pearl, the role of women is oppressed throughout the entire culture they inhibit, yet this stigma is defeated in facing death. One key female character, Juana, is a determined and strategic character, yet she is only expected to uphold stereotypical wifely duties to her husband Kino. …show more content…

The both of them were not taken seriously because men were deemed as “half insane and half god” (Steinbeck 60) while women such as Juana were “obedient and respectful...standing fatigue and hunger almost better than Kino himself” (Steinbeck 7). Women in their culture were expected to serve their men and depend on them for basic survival, with their responsibilities including cooking potato cakes, cleaning, and child care. The fact that Steinbeck acknowledges Juana’s competence and potential to exceed these responsibilities through the entire story displays that her culture favored men to women. Therefore, this inequality led to an inefficiency in solving a problem such as the one discussed in The

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