“THE PEARL by John Steinbeck.” Written in 1940 and published in 1947, “The
Pearl” is another of Steinbeck’s novels, which tells the great American dream.
The English he uses, as in most of his books, is fairly simple. The message that
he attempts to put through to the reader, which makes this short and
effortlessly understandable. Steinbeck’s protagonists comprise of Kino, a young
Mexican fisherman, and his poverty-stricken family, consisting of Juana (his
wife) and Coyotito (his baby boy). The story begins set in the bare darkness of
the interior of Kino’s mud hut, where the family awakens before the dawning of
each day to perform their retual of preparing and eating corn cakes-the family’s
staple. Their living quarters is situated next to the Gulf of Mexico, where Kino
would go out to dive for oysters and catch his family’s next meal. Every single
day he dreams of finding the great pearl, whom everybody believes, will make him
rich. It is the incident of his son’s illness that puts the fire and sense of
urgency in his heart to search for the prized object. The author drawn
comparison to the American dream: To gain material wealth, obtain success.
Ironically, when Kino does find the Pearl, it is to his great disappointment,
too large and virtually worthless. Kino, as a character, is represented by
Steinbeck, as the general American public of his day, where innocent victims
compromise their moral values. His dream blinds him to greed and suspicions of
his neighbors. Even Juana, is unable to temper his obsession and the events
leading to tragedy. Kino eventually comes to realize that material wealth is
nothing when you vision of good and evil. John Steinbeck was able to write The
Pearl in the style of a folktale by keeping it short. By doing that, he made it
is easier to keep in the memory, to pass it down to the next generation.
Story’s characters are common everyday people. They are not in the
upper class, but they are hard working-class laborers, it makes the story closer
to people. They are able to relate to the characters and how the characters
feel. Also it provides a moral lesson which gives parents a reason to pass it
down to their children. Steinbeck himself said that in The Pearl, “...perhaps
everyone takes his own meaning from it and reads his own life into it”. That
means that it does not matter who hears the story, they will each get something
out of it. Steinbeck made it exciting, which appeals to the listener and keeps
them focussed on the story and wanting to hear more. By using these simple
techniques, Steinbeck achieved his goal in writing a true folktale. In The
Pearl, Steinbeck kept referring to songs. These were songs that Kino learned as
a boy in the camp that they created for everything they saw, thought or did.
There were songs for every aspect of his life: family, evil, the enemy, and
eventually the pearl. They represented the good and the evil. But the Song of
the Pearl was different. At the start of the story Kino said, “but no new songs
were added”.However, the Song of the Pearl was added, and Kino placed in it
whatever he could see in the pearl. At the start he saw in the pearl his family
and all the things he could buy for them when he sold the pearl. So because of
what he saw, the Song of the Pearl became the same as the Song of the Family.
But soon the song changed. As Kino began to doubt and became afraid after he
could not sell the pearl, the Song of Evil slowly took over and replaced the
Song of the Family inside the pearl. Kino could not even see his own nice
visions in the pearl, but all he saw was his own death. Evil was brought into
the story very early on as the scorpion stung the baby. Good won over again as
the swelling diminished with Juana’s love and the seaweed remedy. After Kino
found the pearl, evil began to take over.
