Introduction
For Steinbeck, Mexico was everything America was not. It possessed a primitive vitality, a harsh simplicity and a romantic beauty – all of which are found in “The Pearl”. No reader would expect such a lovely place to be the setting for a tragedy in which Kino found a pearl that would result in the loss of much that meant to him.
Analysis
The main protagonist o John Steinbeck’s novella “The Pearl” is a young Mexican Indian pearl diver named Kino. He lives with Juana and they have a baby named Coyotito. They live a somewhat peaceful, uneventful life until their baby gets bitten by a scorpion. When Juana tells her partner to fetch the doctor, he and the neighbors tell her that the doctor will never come to such an impoverished place as theirs. Juana then sets off for the doctor’s residence while Kino and a crowd of villagers follow her.
At the doctor’s house, Juana is informed that the doctor is not in. The truth is that he refuses ot help the couple for two reasons: they cannot afford to pay the doctor’s fee and also because the doctor is prejudiced against Kino’s race.
Kino goes back to work, diving for oysters from his canoe. Juana, in turn, treats her baby whose shoulder has become swollen from the scorpion’s bite. She does this by applying brown seaweed to the wound until the swelling subsides. Meantime, Kino discovers an unusually large oyster. Upon opening it, he beholds a pearl as large as the egg of a seagull. He shouts his good fortune to his fellow divers, and before he reaches home, the news is already known to the inhabitants of the village and the town, including the priest and the doctor. The priest advise Kino that he needs to give thanks for his good luck; while the doctor prevails upon Kino to have his baby treated. Actually, the doctor does something to make the child sick so that he could then heal him and get paid for it.
That night, the couple is victimized by robbers who hit Kino on the head, but are unsuccessful in stealing the pearl. By this time, Juana is convinced that the pearl is a harbinger of evil and pleads with her husband to throw the pearl back into the sea. Kino refuses, for he feels that it will give them better lives than they presently have.
On the day Kino ventures to sell the pearl in the town, the pearl buyers have already planned on a ruse by which they could purchase it at the least amount of money. The pearl remains unsold and that night the couple are beset by thieves. Again Kino is bloodied and beaten and the attackers have escaped. Juana begs him anew to throw the pearl back into the sea; but Kino still refuses, envisioning the pearl being sold to provide Coyotito with an education. Undercover of darkness, Juana takes the pearl, aiming to throw it herself into the sea. Kino follows her and saves the pearl from going under water; but then he is attacked by robbers he fails to identify.
The pearl is knocked away but he manages to stab to death one of his assailants before he is hit to unconsciousness. Juana retrieves the pearl, returns it to him and tells him they must flee the village for he has killed a man. Checking on his canoe, Kino finds it smashed and as they approached their hut, they find it in flames. Juana is completely convinced that the pearl brings them evil but Kino, because of his love for his family, continues to believe otherwise. For him, it offers a promising future.
The little family leaves the village at night and head for the high mountains. During their escape, Kino discovers some trackers following them and leads them away. Higher up in the mountains, Kino finds a stream and a cave where he hides his family. The trackers camp by the stream and plans to attack them before they do. One of the trackers aims his gun and fires in the direction of a cry he has heard. Kino jumps on him and kills him with his knife. He grabs the attacker’s gun and shoots another tracker. The third tracker is also shot to death. But Kino hears the sound of Juana’s crying for Coyotito has in turn been killed by gunfire.
There is no other recourse but for the couple to return to the beach and offer the pearl back to where it came from. Kino cocks his arm and throws the pearl as far out to the sea as possible. It sinks to the sandy bottom, nevermore to see the light of day. Truly it had been a “pearl of great price”.
Kino is young and at the peak of his physical powers. He has black, unruly hair, keen, dark eyes and a course, ragged mustache. He is lithe and strong, able to gather oysters underwater for two minutes without coming up for air and to move catlike in the dark and on rough terrain. He loves his wife, Juana, dearly and idolizes his infant son, Coyotito. He is proud of his role as head of the family and strongly adheres to the traditions of his race.
However, it is due to his ambition, great love and devotion to his family that he encounters ruin when in the course of his trade, he discovers an unusually large pearl. After this discovery, “he quickly becomes more aware of his people’s powerlessness and ignorance as he encounters contempt, deceit, greed and brutality in the bigger world where he goes to sell his glorious treasure. As the threats to the pearl and the family’s safety become more pressing, Kino’s serenity and innocence are replaced by rage, fear and cunning, and the instinct to kill. In the end, having murdered four men and lost his hut, his beloved inherited canoe, and above all, his precious infant son, a stone-hearted Kino hurls the malignant pearl back into the sea” (Rollins, 1998).
In the story, Steinbeck creates Kino, an unwed father whose chief concern are to marry Juana, the mother of his child, Coyotito in a church wedding and to provide for his family and ensure Coyotito’s education. It was a typical middle-class value aspired to by Kino.
Kino and Juana rejoice in their excitement over finding the pearl, but their jubilation soon turns to distrust in the brokers to whom Kino must sell the gem in order to benefit from it. They claim that the pearl is so big that it has no commercial value. The doctor who denied his services at the start, no proffers the best of services to be paid later when the pearl is sold.
“Kino, essentially peace-loving, is forced to kill three men. Worst of all, his adored Coyotito is killed by pursuer’s who shoot recklessly and strike the boy. The pearl comes to represent all that is bad in life, all that is, in the eyes of the superstitious peasant – unlucky. Finally, at Juana’s urging, Kino, like the Indian boy in the legend, heaves the jewel into the sea. He has made nothing form his find, and he has lost a great deal that is precious to him” (Shuman, 2007).
The characters of Steinbeck in “The Pearl” are real people in a real world. However, they are also universal types. Kino, the Indian Mexican is a namesake of an early Jesuit explorer. Kino, his partner, Juana and the baby are an archetypal family – like the Holy Family that figure in an medieval morality play. Kino’s ambitions are no different from the universal dream of bettering oneself and family. This symbolic family most struggle once and for all against an uncaring natural order and a corrupt social order. Unfortunately, Steinbeck would never again achieve the fusion of parable and realism which are strengthened in “The Pearl”.
Conclusion
No writer has better expressed the underside of the American Dream, but few writers have so successfully celebrated the great hope symbolized in that dream – the hope of human development. Steinbeck’s best fictions picture a paradise lost but also posit a future paradise to be regained in spite of his faults and failures. John Steinbeck’s best literary works demonstrate a greatness of heart and mind found only rarely in modern American literature” (Millichap, 2000).
Works Cited
Millichap, J.R., “The Pearl”, Critical Survey of Long Fiction, Salem Press, 2000.
Rollins, J., “The Pearl”, Cyclopedia of Literary Characters, 1998.
Shuman, R.B., “The Pearl”, Magill’s Survey of American Literature, 2007.