Steinbeck's peculiarly intense simplicity of technique is admirably
displayed in this vignette - a simple, tragic tale of Mexican
little people, a story retold by the pearl divers of a fishing
hamlet until it has the quality of folk legend. A young couple
content with the humble living allowed them by the syndicate which
controls the sale of the mediocre pearls ordinarily found, find
their happiness shattered when their baby boy is stung by a
scorpion. They dare brave the terrors of a foreign doctor, only to
be turned away when all they can offer in payment is spurned. Then
comes the miracle. Kino find a great pearl. The future looks bright
again. The baby is responding to the treatment his mother had
given. But with the pearl, evil enters the hearts of men:- ambition
beyond his station emboldens Kino to turn down the price offered by
the dealers- he determines to go to the capital for a better
market; the doctor, hearing of the pearl, plants the seed of doubt
and superstition, endangering the child's life, so that he may get
his rake-off; the neighbors and the strangers turn against Kino,
burn his hut, ransack his premises, attack him in the dark - and
when he kills, in defense, trail him to the mountain hiding place-
and kill the child. Then- and then only- does he concede defeat. In
sorrow and humility, he returns with his Juana to the ways of his
people; the pearl is thrown into the sea.... A parable, this, with
no attempt to add to its simple pattern. (Kirkus Reviews)
The Pearl is John Steinbeck's flawless parable about wealth and the evil it can bring. When Kino, a Mexican pearl-diver finds 'the Pearl of the World' he believes that his impoverished life will be magically transformed. He will marry Juana in the church and their son, Coyotito, will go to school. Obsessed by his dream, Kino is blind to the greed, fear and even violence the pearl arouses in his neighbours - and in himself.
Written with haunting and lyrical simplicity, The Pearl sets the values of the civilized world against those of the primitive and finds them tragically inadequate.
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