The Pearl by John Steinbeck

333 Words1 Page
bulb-icon

Recommended: Themes found in the pearl by John Steinbeck

The Pearl by John Steinbeck

The Pearl, by John Steinbeck, is a classic tale. It is a heavily emotion based book about a man and his fight for his family. Greed, evil, culture, luck, anger, death, happiness, and mystery are all key aspects to this novel. Steinbeck’s way of writing pulls the reader into what seems to be another world.

Kino and Juana’s baby, Coyotito, is stung by a scorpion. The doctor would not come and cure him, because he knew that the family did not have very much money. Kino and Juana decide to take the baby to the doctor, along with some of their neighbors. When they get there, the doctor doesn’t want to treat the child because he is a poor indian boy. Kino realizes that he has to find something of value to be able to pay for Coyotito’s treatment.

While oystering, Kino finds a gigantic pearl. Upon hearing about this great find, the doctor decides to heal the child. Kino becomes greedy, and wants to see how much money he can get for the pearl. Juana thinks that the pearl is evil, and she does not want to have anything to do with it. He decides to sell the pearl for 50,000 pesos, but his highest offer was only 1,500 pesos. He decides to go to the capitol to see if he can get a higher bid. The pearl only brings him unhappiness. On his way to the capitol, evil men try to steal his pearl. When they do not succeed, they destroy his canoe, and burn down his house.

Kino starts to realize that money cannot buy happiness, but by then it is too late. He is forced to take his family into hiding. They were followed by trackers, and Kino is forced to kill one of them. Kino and his family hide in a cave. He goes outside to attack the men that are still there, and one of the men ends up shooting Coyotito. Kino has to go back to town with his grieving wife, and without his son. When Kino and Juana are going to throw the pearl into the Gulf, they look into it. In it they see Coyotito, and the evil that killed him. Then they cast the pearl out into the water.

Show More
Related

  • The Scorpion Plot

    1175 Words  | 3 Pages

    As Kino and Juana are eating, a scorpion descends on the little Coyotito threatening to sting him. Coyotito sees the scorpion on his cradle, and reaches out to grab it. Coyotito shakes the cradle, which makes the scorpion fall and land on his shoulder and sting him. Kino sees what the scorpion has done and grabs it and crushes it in his hand. Juana grabs Coyotito and begins sucking the venom out of the wound. The child continues to moan and their neighbors begin to gather outside of their hut. Juana tells Kino to summon the doctor, but Kino does not have much hope that he will come. Juana grabs Coyotito and runs out of their hut towards the doctor’s house. Kino and the rest of the neighbors follow. Once they have reached the doctor, a servant is waiting outside his house. They tell him that their baby child needs to see the doctor immediately. The servant tells them to wait, while he calls the doctor. The servant comes back and tells Kino that he doctor is very busy today and won’t be able to help them...

    Read More

  • Juana POV Essay Rough Draft

    638 Words  | 2 Pages

    In conclusion, Kino and I must return to the village and throw away the pearl because it is has completely changed his personality and placed our family in jeopardy. The pearl has brought evil to our family and has not helped us prosper in any way. Therefore, this pearl is useless and evil, and should not be a part of our family any longer.

    Read More

  • The Pearl by John Stienbeck Movie versus Novel

    667 Words  | 2 Pages

    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...

    Read More

  • Analysis Of The Pearl And The Snow Walker

    1092 Words  | 3 Pages

    Kino, the main character in “The Pearl”, starts off by being a loving, helpful companion to his lover Juana. The two are so connected they barely feel the need to talk to each other. Their life is almost perfect, until a scorpion stings their baby, Coyotito. Because the couple has very little money, the doctor will not cure Coyotito and says, “have I nothing

    Read More

  • Greed In The Great Gatsby

    1529 Words  | 4 Pages

    He is driven by greed, so much so that he could even see dreams form in the pearl. Kino is the head of a modest household and until he finds the pearl he lives a satisfied life with all he needs for his family to be happy. As soon as Kino finds the pearl he starts to want possessions he never wanted before. He dreams of education for Coyotito, marrying Juana in a Catholic church, purchasing new clothing for his family, and getting a harpoon and a rifle for himself. “It was the rifle that broke down the barriers . . . for it is said that humans are never satisfied, that you give them one thing and they want something more” (Steinbeck 32). Located within a small poverty-stricken community, a pearl diver named Kino finds “the Pearl of the World” and becomes suddenly rich, he begins to want items that he thought were impossible before. As Kino thinks more and more of what the pearl can do for him, he starts to think that it will raise his social status as well. This is only the beginning of Kino’s greediness, for the more he gets, the more he will want, and this begins to dehumanize him. Kino focuses on the wealth of the pearl and causes him to change his values about life. In the beginning, Kino is only focused on his family, once Kino finds the pearl he becomes more focused on the pearl, rather than his family. Kino cares a lot more about losing the pearl rather than something bad happening to his loved

    Read More

  • Of Mice And Men Vs The Pearl

    661 Words  | 2 Pages

    Kino found one of the most valuable and precious pearls in the world and being convinced of its worth was not going to be cheated by only minimally upgrading his condition of life. Instead he wanted to break the fixed life and role that he and his family had and always would live. Kino refuses the maximum offer of fifteen hundred pesos that would easily ease his and his family’s pain and suffering for the coming months. Kino is then determined to trek to the capital to find a fair and just offer. Kino continues determined through the mountains after an attempt at the pearl, his canoe destroyed and his hut set a blaze. Continuing to put his family’s life on the line. It eventually takes the death of his beloved son Coyotito to make him realize he needs to stop being so greedy, no matter how hard he tries and to shut his mouth and know his role.

    Read More

  • Literary Criticism Of The Pearl

    1555 Words  | 4 Pages

    First of all, Kino and Juana think the pearl is a great gift when they first discover it, but when bad fortune if brought upon them, they realize the pearl brings bad luck. In

    Read More

  • Of Mice And Men And The Pearl By John Steinbeck

    808 Words  | 2 Pages

    They both rely on someone else for help. George orders Lennie to "Hide in the brush .... come for you."(of mice and men.30) Lennie is like a baby, he needs to be taken care of, in even the most basic ways. Coyotito is managed by Kino and Juana. When Coyotitio got stung by a scorpion, he wails out in pain. Juana tells Kino, "Go get the doctor."(the pearl.7) Coyotito can't take care of himself, he relies on his parents for assistance. Lennie is like Coyotito in the way, that they rely on others. After Lennie met George at the bush, George "pulled the trigger."(of mice and men.106) George killed Lennie because, he no longer wanted, to get in trouble. Kino heard a "hysterical cry from the little cave ... the cry of [Coyotito's] death"(the pearl.87) Kino was anguished when he lost his son. He lost his real hope, his son. The pearl was what lead, to the death of his beloved son. The pearl represented his greed, his desire, his dark side. When he thought he could beat fate, fate triumphed and made him experience agony. Greed led to the demise of both

    Read More

  • The Pearl, by John Steinbeck

    885 Words  | 2 Pages

    Kino, Juana, and Coyotito go back to the beach and row out to an oyster bed, where he begins to search for the pearl. As Kino continues to search, Juana takes things into her own hands after being refused by the doctor and sucks the poison out of Coyotito and then puts seaweed on the wound, unknowingly healing him. Meanwhile Kino gathers several small oysters but suddenly comes across a particularly large oyster. He picks the oyster up and returns to the surface. When Kino opens the oyster he discovers the pearl. Word that the pearl has been discovered travel through the town quickly. People in the town became jealous of Kino and his family which eventually leads to a great deal of harm.

    Read More

  • The Pearl Literary Analysis

    575 Words  | 2 Pages

    If you were given a million dollars, what would you do? Spend it in a short amount of time? Or save it responsibly for the future? Many would say the latter, confident that they will accomplish that. But for a few, it doesn’t turn out that way. In the book, The Pearl, a family, Kino, Juana and their child, Coyotito, go through various hardships after they have found a pearl, eventually losing everything they had loved. With three examples from the novel, I will explain what the pearl in the book symbolizes.

    Read More

  • The Action of The Pearl

    1206 Words  | 3 Pages

    At the beginning of the book Kino and Juana lived a happy good life until their first and only child Coyotito got stung by a scorpion. The one-second that it took the scorpion to bite Coyotito changed the rest of Kino and Juana's life forever. Kino could not afford to pay for the medical attention Coyotito needed. Kino was determined to find a great pearl that could pay the doctor to save his son. "Kino in his pride and youth and strength, could remain down over two minutes without strain, so that he worked deliberately, selecting the largest shells."(Pg. 18)

    Read More

  • Theme Between Good And Evil In The Pearl

    1218 Words  | 3 Pages

    As the story unfolds, evil enters into the lives of Kino, his wife, and his son. In chapter one, the evil that enters the family first is the scorpion. The scorpion enters the home of Kino and stings Kino’s baby, Coyotito. After Coyotito was stung, another evil soon came along. This evil was the doctor. When Kino and his wife, Juana, bring Coyotito to the doctor, the doctor refuses to help because they had little to no money.

    Read More

  • John Steinbeck's The Pearl

    853 Words  | 2 Pages

    Kino lives in the shore with his family, he was a fisherman. When the morning comes he can hear the song of the family which includes the sounds of waves and animals that surrounded them. Juana his wife had a song too, an ancient song that had only three notes and yet endless variety of interval. One day their baby , Coyotito got stung by an scorpion a deadly poisonous, tiny creature the couple was panicked and didn’t know what to do. Their neighbors help them to get to a doctor but it seems that the doctor was very mean to poor people. There is this other song too which is the song of enemy, they heard it when they have a problems. There is this beggars actually, four of them in front of the church who knew everything in the town. They were students of expressions of young as they went into confession. When they got into the house of the doctor Kino hesitated a moment because this doctor was not of his people. The gate was closed a little and the servant refused to speak in the old language. They never got to speak to the doctor with Kino’s anger. He struck the gate a crushing blow with his fist.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of The Pearl By John Steinbeck

    1537 Words  | 4 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • The Pearl : Appearances Can Be Deceiving

    708 Words  | 2 Pages

    pearl is so big that it has no value. Kino has to hide the pearl, but while he sleeps a thief tries to steal it. The doctor who would not treat Coyotito's scorpion bite when they had no money now comes to them offering the best medical care he can provide.As the story of Kino's situation unfolds, Kino is forced to kill three men, and worst of all, Kino accidentally shoots Coyotito in the head while he is trying to shoot his pursuers. Finally, at Juana's urging, Kino throws the pearl back into the sea. He has made nothing from his fin...

    Read More

More about The Pearl by John Steinbeck

Open Document