The Pearl Book Report

Subject:

It´s a story about good luck and bad luck in a poor fisherman´s life. The setting of the story is located in the southernmost part of California , in Mexico , near the town La Paz.

It is the story of a fisherman who found a pearl beyond price , the Pearl of the World. With the pearl, he hoped to buy peace and happiness for himself, his wife and their little son. Instead he found that peace and happiness are not to be purchased. They are, themselves, pearls beyond price.

The most important persons:

Kino: a young fisherman and pearl diver, very poor, wanted to give his wife and child new clothes, good food, a new house etc. So he had to find a big pearl, a giant pearl. He had to find it soon.

He was strong and his black hair hung over his brown forehead. His eyes were warm and fierce and bright and his moustache was thin and coarse.

Juana: Kino´s young wife.She had dark eyes and she was always looking at him when he awakened. She was a patient, fragile wife- but Kino often wondered at the iron will in his fragile wife. She was obedient, respectful, cheerful and patient, she could arch her back in child pain with hardly a cry. She could stand fatigue and hunger almost better than Kino himself. In the canoe she was like a strong man.

She always took Coyotito out of his hanging box and cleaned him and hammocked him in her shawl in a loop that placed him close to her breast. She sang softly an ancient song that had only three notes though endless variety of interval.

Coyotito: their baby -son , slept in a hanging box , was stung by a scorpion one morning.

Juan Toma's: Kino´s brother

Apolonia: His fat wife. They both had four children.

The doctor: he never came to the cluster of brush houses. Why should he, when he had more than he could do to take care of the rich people who lived in the stone and plaster houses of the town.

He was stout, his voice was hoarse with the fat that pressed on his throat. His eyes rested in puffy little hammocks of flesh and his mouth drooped with discontent. He had a red watered silk dressing gown that had come from Paris, a silver tray, a silver chocolate pot, etc.

The furnitures in his room were heavy and dark and gloomy. He had religious pictures hanging in his house, and a photograph of his dead wife.

Plot synopsis:

The fisherman Kino lived with his ...

... middle of paper ...

...ana and Kino reached La Paz, all people were present. Kino took the pearl in his hand, drew back his arm and flung the pearl with all his might. They saw the little splash in the distance.

When the pearl sank down to the bottom, the music of the pearl disappeared in Kino´s head.

Ideas, opinions and comments:

If this story is a parable, perhaps everyone takes his own meaning from it and reads his own life into it.

In the town of the fishermen they tell the story of the pearl, they tell of Kino,of his wife and of the baby, Coyotito. And because the story has been told so often, it has taken root in every man´s mind. It´s the story of a great pearl, how it was found and how it was lost again.

All retold tales are in people´s hearts, like this one. And there are only good and bad things and black and white things and good and evil things and there is no in-between anywhere. Being a pearl fisher in former days, was a hard and dangerous trade. Day after day, Kino went out in his boat, weighted himself around the waist with a big rock, and went down to the bottom of the sea, where the pearls were hidden. It was a trade which allowed a man only a few short years.