My Thoughts on John Steinbeck, "The Pearl"

 Review of

    "The Pearl" By John Steinbeck

Written by: Ansh Singh

Summary:

        This story begins with a poor man named Kino. Kino is a recently made father who lives with his wife, Juana, and first-born child. Eventually, all peace breaks loose after the child, Coyotito, gets bitten by a venomous scorpion while sleeping. Afraid of losing her first-born child, Juana makes every attempt to draw the poison out of Coyotito's body to no avail. The family takes the child to the nearest doctor, but the doctor refuses to give medical treatment due to the family's financial status and lack of money. 

        Kino then goes pearl diving in hopes to find a pearl that could pay for his son's treatment. While diving, Kino discovers an oyster which contains a large pearl that he finds to be worth a lot of money. His neighbors celebrate the discovery with him, but Kino soon sees that as a problem because he notices the greedy people of the town beginning to show themselves. They break into Kino's house and Kino spends the night fighting them off.

        The next morning, Kino goes into town to try to sell the pearl. Everybody in the town tries to lowball the pearls price, so he doesn't manage to find a buyer. In this time, Juana realizes that the pearl will bring more trouble to the family than good. Juana then attempts to throw the pearl back into the sea, but Kino catches her just in time to save the pearl.

        When they return back to the town, they find their house ransacked and destroyed. Kino decides that the three of them must escape to the capitol quickly, but they soon realize that they are being followed by multiple men. Kino attempts to kill them, but the attackers get a shot off at Coyotito before Kino finishes them off. Coyotito then dies. Kino realizes his mistake of keeping the pearl and he disposes of it by throwing it back into the ocean.

Review:

        This was a very interesting, yet sad story. John Steinbeck does a very good job presenting the power of greed throughout this novel. Juana had the right idea of the pearl from the start; the pearl was more of a curse than a blessing. The pearl brought evil and horror to the family, even murder resulted. You see many instances of greed in every part of the book, from the jealously of the townsfolk to the violence brought from the pearl. Specifically the scene where Kino found Juana attempting to throw the pearl into the sea. Kino beat Juana for trying to take away the profits that would come from the pearl, but he had yet to realize all the evil it brought with it as well. During that scene, Kino was attacked by thieves. Kino stabs and murders a man out of pure greed and desperation brought from the pearl.

        I continue to bring up the idea of greed because it is an important theme throughout the book. This is because the entire world for Kino was changed after discovering the pearl. Kino was overtaken by his selfish desires of materialism and so were the rest of his neighbors. This ambition drove Kino to a state of violence which eventually lead to the death of his first-born son. All of this brings us back to the topic of evil which originates from the pearl.

        "The Pearl" by John Steinbeck was a very well-written and interesting book. I found the hidden themes of the novel to be the most interesting of all. Though I am still confused as to how he connects music to all of this. Kino creates a connection to people and objects with music; everything has its own song which I find quite confusing. Where do you think music comes into play in the story? Perhaps it is just the way Kino thinks? Nevertheless, I really enjoyed reading this book. It taught me a good lesson on how greed can change people and I learned more about how powerful it really is.