Over history, women have had a stereotype of being subservient, passive, and deferent. However, John Steinbeck’s novella The Pearl disproves this epithet. The story revolves around a husband and wife, Kino and Juana, and their baby son, Coyotito. The characters experience a meaningful journey and learn a manifold of lessons. Although multiple themes unravel in the story, the author highlights the roles and development of women. Steinbeck’s The Pearl depicts various women’s roles and their development, primarily in Juana’s words and actions. Juana, the wife to fisherman Kino, is one of the main characters in The Pearl. Coming from poverty, Juana and her husband live a minimalist life, as her simple clothes show (a battered blue head shawl and skirt, and a green ribbon knotted in her braids). Many themes in the story revolve around her. Although Juana understands her role to be a subservient and passive wife, she is smart, brave, and determined throughout the novella. Symbolizing the power and strength of women, Juana gradually becomes dominant over her husband. Juana’s second role in The Pearl is to be the protective mother of her son, Coyotito. Last, she is wise and logical in troubling times and acts as the voice of reason. Juana’s words and actions emphasize her various roles in The Pearl. Throughout The Pearl, Juana conforms to a gender …show more content…
Simultaneously, Juana represents the submissive yet dominant wife, protective mother, and wise woman. Throughout The Pearl, Juana grows exponentially. She defies gender norms and stands by her husband’s side, equal to him at the end of the story. The audience can conclude that Juana embodied multiple roles, and grew as a character and woman in the novella. The story successfully uses Juana’s words and actions to illustrate women’s roles and their development in The
Women haven’t always had the freedom that they have today. Women were abused physically, emotionally, and psychologically. Although women were perceived to act and present themselves in a certain way, some young women went against the cult of the true woman hood not only to be different, but to escape he physical, emotional, and psychological abuse that they will or have encountered. The containment they felts they overcame or made better for themselves. In novels, The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Path and Lucy, by Jamaica Kincaid both young women portrayed their stories, lives, and culture in many different ways, but with some of the same themes.
Despite the perception that women are inferior and incompetent, seldom do women withstand this consistent discrimination upon their sex. Under the jurisdiction of men in their families, women are oftentimes restrained from opportunity and development. Curley, a man with an intimidating complexion, forces many, including his flirtatious wife, to succumb to his power. However, he fails to recognize his wife’s rising empowerment as she manipulates men around him into becoming her pawns. John Steinbeck’s usage of Curley’s wife in the novel Of Mice and Men delineates the desire of women to eliminate the over dominance of men through deceit in exchange for their own power.
Curley’s wife is a complex, main character in John Steinbeck’s novella, “Of Mice and Men”. She is introduced as an insignificant secondary character, but evidently posses the importance of causing the end of the novella. Despite the weight of her role, her value is hindered because of the culture towards women in the 1930s. Steinbeck uses imagery, foreshadowing, and metaphors to show loneliness analyzed through a Feminist Lens.
Throughout The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck shows the truth about work and gender roles with the examples of families travelling to California. His novel sets an example for Michelle Bachelet’s words on how gender roles become less pertinent to everyday lives. People become less aware of what should be feminine work and masculine work and their survival now becomes their first priority. The once divided work becomes fair game in order to stay alive, and the gender roles change for the
this is when Juana, the wife, tries to rid them of the pearl because she
The author presents the story to us by using personified landscape as well as metaphors to better express Elisa’s character and fertility. A very accurate and polished landscape is described by the author, and things such as rain and fog in the Salinas Valley represent husband and wife. However, most of the story concentrates in Elisa’s duality between true-self and desired-self.
Not very many children are born in prison, nor do many live in prison for the first three months of their lives. It was almost probable that the child might turn out rather eccentric, which Pearl, in a way, did. And it is definitely strange that she was born as a result of a sin. Thus, her mother named her Pearl, “as being of great price, —purchased with all she had, —her mother’s only treasure!” She has very capricious emotions and is impish sometimes. Pearl is an eerily intelligent and devilish child who has a strange connection with the scarlet “A”.
In conclusion, most of the female character are often isolated, victimized and ultimately killed by the male characters. Furthermore, it is rather ironic how Mary Shelly, the daughter Mary Wollestonecraft who wrote the Vindication of the Right of Women chooses to portray women. In this novel, the female characters are the exact opposite of the male characters; they are passive, weak and extremely limited. Mary Shelly repeatedly shows women in a victimized position exhibiting to the audience how things should not be. In conclusion, Mary Shelly’s novel is a reflection of how women were treated in the 1800’s.
Women play a key role in this novel in many ways. In the case of...
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.
Grande introduces to the audience various characters that cross Juana 's path to either alter or assist her on her journey to find her father. Through those individuals, Grande offers a strong comparison of female characters who follow the norms, versus those that challenge gender roles that
The Pearl is a parable, a story that has a moral, written by John Steinbeck. The novel is based on a poor Indian family who live in a small village outside of La Paz, Mexico along the Gulf of Mexico. The family consists of: Kino, a fisherman and pearl diver; Juana and their infant son Coyotito. Kino’s people live a life of poverty so when Kino finds “The Pearl of The World” the villagers and town’s people all want to get their hands on the pearl for themselves; Lap Paz became filled with greed. This novel like all others is focused on a major theme; the theme of a literary work is defined as a central idea, concern or purpose about life that a writer wishes to convey. There may be several themes identified in a literary work; however, in John Steinbeck’s novel The Pearl the author uses an occurrence in nature–the pearl to develop one of the most essential universal themes in literature, which is humanity’s struggle with greed.
Readers can tell from the statement that many of the people Kino encounters after finding the pearl become bitter “friends”. At this point, Kino and Juana begin to realize that the pearl is bringing bad luck upon them. They are taken advantage of by the doctor and he decides to visit them after knowing they have the pearl. “This pearl is like a sin”(56). Juana begins to realize the pearl is bringing them bad luck, but Kino still trusts that it’s a gift. Readers can also assume that people are trying to take the pearl when Kino is suddenly attacked during the night. “Blood oozed down from his scalp and there was a long…”(56). Readers can now confirm that the pearl has changed and now represents evil. The pearl also begins to destroy Kino and Juana’s relationship as they have different opinions on what to do with the pearl. After Kino wakes up and follows Juana when she wakes up and walks out, readers know he has started to lose full trust in her. “He rolled up to his feet and followed her silently as she had gone” (58). Through the symbolism of the pearl and what it brings upon Kino and Juana, the author emphasizes how the pearl is not what it first appears to be, which was
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 ...
... struggles in their day-to-day lives to subvert these rules placed upon them by men within their lives and within the society. It is every woman’s dream to trespass the boundaries made for her by others. The lives of the child’s mother, aunt, grandmother and others bring out the importance of every day resistance and its role in woman’s liberation