“Greed, like the love of comfort, is a kind of fear.” John Steinbeck’s parable The Pearl illustrates this topic. Even the kindest of people can be driven to greed under the right circumstances. As unassuming of a flaw it seems to be, greed holds an invisible, yet strong hold on nearly every individual. Kino, a Mexican - Indian pearl diver, lives a content life with his wife, Juana, and his infant son, Coyotito. When his son is stung by a scorpion, there seems to be no hope for his treatment, due to the town doctor’s greed and sense of superiority. However, seemingly by chance, Kino manages to retrieve a massive pearl from the depths of the sea. Driven with a sense of hope for his son, Kino must protect his pearl from everything. John Steinbeck’s parable The Pearl illustrates how greed brings out the worst in people. Kino begins the story a simple man. Accustomed to a daily routine, he feels a sense of responsibility for his family and his people. Though he must work to survive, he seems content with his simple life. Kino’s life is turned on it’s head, however, when his son Coyotito is stung by a black scorpion. Because the town doctor’s fee is too high, he is filled with a sense of despair and anger. Kino’s luck seems to have reversed, however, when he manages to obtain an enormous pearl from the depths of the ocean: Kino deftly slipped his knife into the edge of the shell. Through the knife he could feel the muscle tighten hard. He worked the blade lever-wise and the closing muscle parted and the shell fell apart. The lip-like flesh writhed up and then subsided. Kino lifted the flesh,and there it lay, the great pearl, perfect as the moon. It captured the light and refined it and gave it back in silver incandescence.It was as la... ... middle of paper ... ...t’s great value became the primary motivation factor for greed, prompting evil and injustice wherever it went. Nearly every character in Kino’s story outside his family acts upon their greed to try and take advantage of Kino’s situation. The doctor in chapter one, at first uninterested in helping a patient that cannot pay, is now more than willing to help when he hears about Kino’s pearl. The pearl merchants try to take advantage of Kino’s lack of pearl selling knowledge to try and buy his pearl for a low price. Kino himself allows his greed to take control of himself and only regrets it when he realizes his son is worth more than the money he should receive. By the end of the story, the pearl no longer symbolizes hope, but now symbolizes evil and anguish. It’s great value became the primary motivation factor for greed, prompting evil and injustice wherever it went.
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
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.
In “The Pearl” by John Steinbeck it shows that family and tradition should be valued above material possessions. It shows that Kino’s people are very poor, they have been doing the same things their whole lives, and that Kino's family will be destroyed by the pearl. To some people this tells them a lot and to others it shows them that being poor and about to be destroyed by the pearl shows
In “The Pearl” the characters, the Doctor, Juan Tomas, and the villagers all represent a type of greed or a lack of greed in the situation of the pearl. All of them want a certain something from Kino that involves them getting money from the pearl or getting the physical pearl from Kino. Some of the characters also represent a lack of greed by not wanting anything out of the pearl, but just wanting to help Kino solve the pearl situation.
The Pearl, is a novella written by John Steinbeck. The setting of the book was a village located in the La Paz, Mexico. It is located near the Gulf of Mexico, a place where there were many fisherman. La Paz is a peaceful village with many different types people there. The main character Kino, is known as one of the villagers who is poor. Kino deeply cares for his family and wants to live a peaceful life with his wife Juana and his son Coyotito. However he is often misjudged by others and is continuously oppressed even after he finds “the pearl of the world” which could give him a huge fortune. However, many people tried to target Kino for his pearl and he lost many things that are important to him. While his personality was changing, Kino becomes more violent. Kino only became violent when his people attacked him and tried to steal his pearl.
Greed can turn anyone into a dangerous monster. In John Steinbeck’s The Pearl there are many examples of greed. One example would be when Kino, the main character, beats his wife over the pearl. Another example would be when Kino kills the trackers that followed him and his family though the mountains. The final example of greed would be when the doctor poisons the baby on purpose just for some money. Greed can be very destructive because of these examples from The Pearl.
“He who wants everything everytime will lose everything, anytime”- Vikrant Parsai. This famous quote supports the theme of “Greed and materialism left unchecked, can lead to immoral behavior such as violence” in the book, The Pearl by John Steinbeck. Kino and Juana find the pearl of the world while Kino gets a little too obsessed with the pearl. Juana tries to hide it and make everything better, but everything backfires on her . Kino goes crazy about what Juana tries to do to help him and does things no one would ever imagine.With this in mind, all the readers will look at how greed is expressed through characters,and even Kino himself and symbolism.
First I will be telling you how the pearl changed Kino’s character over the course of the novel. He went from living a happy and calm life, to gaining wealth and destroying his innocence. Kino prays for wealth to be able to help his poisoned son, his life then changes forever when Kino goes diving and came across a sacred pearl. The pearl had great fortune, with this he could now do many things such as give his son a good education, marry his wife, Juana, in a proper church, etc. Then the pearl begins to give them bad luck, people begin to break into their house for the pearl. Kino tries to sell the pearl but he wasn’t getting offered the amount he wanted. Juana tries to throw the pearl away, but Kino was obsessed with it and out of anger beats
Picture walking down a road and picking up a lottery ticket, then later finding out that it was the winning ticket. That is essentially what happens to the character, Kino, when he finds a great pearl in the story The Pearl by John Steinbeck. In the book Kino and his family soon learn that wealth can drastically change people in a negative way. Author John Steinbeck includes a scene leading up to this in which Kino feels alone and fails to see a thin dog in the pearl to show how power and riches can affect life negatively. When he writes this scene he tries to present a shift in Kino’s values. The conflict in this scene is somewhat person versus person.
The pearl in The Pearl by John Steinbeck shows traits of the characters in their worst moments, but the pearl mostly showed the trait “greed” in Kino because of how his life was before he almost got wealthy. The greed and coveting overtook his mind and personality and changed him who he was as a person. The author showed this throughout the book in many different ways. Steinbeck uses the symbol of the pearl to show the power of greed through Kino’s constant list of desires, his hunger for money, and his constant violence.
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
One example of this universal theme of humanity’s struggle with violence that occurred in this novel happened when Kino violently attacked his wife to keep her from throwing his “precious” pearl into the sea. “ . . . he leaped at her and caught her arm and wrenched the pearl from her. He struck her in the face with ...
...rtly utilizes conflict throughout the narrative to illustrate the fact that greed was the cause of those conflicts. Steinbeck describes Kino as a loving man, but the pearl awakens such dark greediness in him, that he is corrupted to the point where he beat his wife to make sure the pearl is saved. This conflict with his wife is a direct result of his greediness, and his unrelenting greed leads to his son’s death. John Steinbeck is able to convey the theme that insatiable greed is the precursor to agonizing misery, through the use of various elements of fiction that include characterization, symbolism and conflict. Through these elements of fiction, Steinbeck creates a dark, tragic story that warns of the consequences of greed in a world where everyone is looking out for themselves and their capacity for evil and greed is far outweighs their capacity for benevolence.
Humans must go through many struggles as they attempt to attain their dreams. John Steinbeck exemplifies a certain man’s struggle for his dreams in his novella The Pearl. A Native American family must save their child from a scorpion sting. This leads them to find a great pearl which does not help them; in fact, it plagues their peaceful world with greed, death, and evil. Throughout the novel Kino’s importances in life change as he copes with his inner demons.
The Pearl is a book that demonstrates that wealth does not always mean prosperity, but that it can also mean grief and loss. In an effort to demonstrate the evil behind the love of money John Steinbeck creates Kino, a man who chooses the possible riches of the world over his family’s well-being. Kino is a poor man who has nothing, except for his wife, Juana, and baby, Coyotito. The family lives in poverty, yet they are a content little family that seeks to have nothing more. On an ordinary day, Kino and Juana are struck by disaster when a scorpion stings Coyotito. Juana’s first thought after doing what she can for her child is to take Coyotito to the doctor. However, the doctor is a cruel man who does not take patients, infants or adults, who cannot pay. Devastated, Kino and Juana go in search of pearls and have the fortune of finding a huge magnificent pearl that could be the key to a better life. What first seems like a blessing quickly turns into misfortune, for the love of money destroys what once was a happy family.