Essay Comparing The Pearl And The Monkey's Paw

633 Words2 Pages

In the book, The Pearl, by John Steinbeck, and the short story “The Monkey's Paw” by W.W. Jacobs, both authors would agree that in these stories, if you intervene with your destiny/fate, a bad outcome is sure to happen.In The Pearl, Kino finds the pearl of the world. Kino wants to sell the pearl, in return for money, but the pearl ends up bringing the opposite of prosperity and brings bad fortune. Also, In “The Monkey's Paw”, Mr.White also wishes for money, but as he is warned, terrible things come when u interrupt with your fate.
In both stories, the authors make it clear that it is believed that something controls our destiny. Whether it be, in The Pearl, where the main character, Kinos destiny was decided by the Gods or goddesses, as …show more content…

In The Pearl, Kino wants to sell the pearl for money, for several reasons. One of which is to help his dying baby, Coyotito. Kino ended up getting more greedy and wanted more and more from the pearl, that a bad ending was sure to happen. The author includes several bad events that happen, due to Kino's greed and attempts to mess with fate. For example, his baby died. This is sort of ironic because he wanted the pearl so he could make Coyotito better, but... A couple other examples of how Kino meets with disaster when his house burnt down and his canoe was trashed. On page 29 of this, Novel it says, “He knew that the gods don't take their revenge on a man if he be successful through his own efforts.” This shows that Kino knew what was going to happen, but didn't care because his greediness got the best of him. Likewise, in “The Monkey's Paw” Mr.White was careless, which ended up with him finding himself in the middle of a disaster. On pg 187, it says “...And that those who interfered with it did so to their sorrow.” Mr. White didn’t care, he was warned by the sergeant, when he said to him “Better let it burn.” because the sergeant knew it was bad and would bring great pain and sorrow and problems to Mr.White and his family, but he paid no attention to the sergeants

More about Essay Comparing The Pearl And The Monkey's Paw

Open Document