The Pearl (Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: John Steinbeck
- First Published: 1945
- Type of Work: Novella
- Genres: Short fiction, Parable
- Subjects: Tradition, Superstition, Prejudices or antipathies, Native Americans or American Indians, Creoles, Good and evil, Greed, Mexico or Mexicans, Church or churches
- Locales: Baja California, Mexico
The Pearl, which its author calls a parable, was first published as “The Pearl of the World” in Woman's Home Companion in 1945. It was published as a novel and released as a film under the title The Pearl in 1947. In parables, characters exist outside and beyond their individual identities and are shaped to represent universal types.
Steinbeck's story came from a folk story he had heard and which he related in The Log from the Sea of Cortez (1951). The story, purported to be true, was of a simple Mexican peasant boy who had found a pearl near La...
[The entire page is 804 words long]
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