Analysis Of The Pearl By John Steinbeck

The Pearl by John Steinbeck is a classic novella. Steinbeck is a classic author that also wrote The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men. “This long story (or short novel) follows five momentous days in the life of an Indian pearl diver living in La Paz, a small port on the Gulf of California,” (Gunn 1) . Kino is the pearl diver, and his son, Coyotito, gets stung by a scorpion, but the doctor will not see him because of race and status. That is until Kino goes pearl diving and finds a pearl the size of a gull’s egg. After that everything changes for Kino, his family, and the whole village. This novella is set up a lot like a parable in which it is an earthly story with an heavenly meaning. This story has many symbols that point to the overlying

Most of the evil in The Pearl shows up after Kino gets the pearl. Kino goes from being a righteous man to being a murderer and the assaulter of his wife, Juana. She even goes so far as to say, “Kino, this pearl is evil. Let us destroy it before it destroys us. Let us crush it between two stones. Let us- let us throw it back to the sea where it belongs. Kino, it is evil, it is evil,” (Steinbeck 56). Kino and his tribe, more particularly Juana, have this misconception that the pearl itself is evil, but an object cannot be evil. No, an object does not possess the power of good and evil morals. It is not the object that it is evil it is the people. It just so happens that the object brought out the true nature of evil that has always existed within man. “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned,” (Romans 5:12 NIV) Kino saw it as wealth and as his one chance to be more than what the people of the town has said he is. It was the love of money that brought out the evil in Kino. “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs,” (1 Timothy 6:10 NIV). Unfortunately, it is the love of money that brings out the evil in Kino, because Kino is a good person with a good

While every person is born with sin, people can still have a good heart. Kino has a lot of what we would consider good characteristics, especially in the beginning of the novella. Kino loves his common-law wife and wants to get married in the church whenever he sells the pearl. He also terribly loves his son, Coyotito. That is what started this whole adventure. When Coyotito got stung by a scorpion Kino took him to the doctor, despite knowing the doctor would not see him. He went pearl diving hoping to find something worth enough money for Coyotito to be seen and treated by the doctor, little did he know that that would be where everything would start going in a down-hill spiral. The pearl in a whole is not evil just like in the beginning Kino was not evil. It was the choices that Kino made that caused him to drown in this dark abyss of pride and greed. So was it his greed that caused him to do wrong acts or was it his pride that caused him to have greed? Out of all of Kino’s characteristics, “It is his pride that is most striking, and it is his pride that brings him disaster,” (Bates 43). “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall,” (Proverbs 16:18). It is in fact Kino’s pride that causes him to fall into sin. If he would not have been so prideful he would have sold the pearl at the original price the men were offering then none of the sinful actions