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The Pearl
In The Pearl, the brush huts where Kino, Juana and their family live are continually contrasted with the stone and plaster houses in the center of town where the (comparatively) rich people live....
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The Pearl
Coyotito is a focal point throughout “The Pearl,” counterbalancing the pearl itself, which Kino initially intends to use principally for his benefit. Kino initially thinks he will be able to...
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The Pearl
Once Kino discovers the Pearl of the World, news spreads like wildfire, and the unscrupulous, greedy pearl dealers plan on taking advantage of him. Given Kino's lowly status as a Native and his...
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The Pearl
Shortly after Kino finds the Pearl of the World, news about his miraculous discovery spreads throughout the village and town like wildfire. When the priest first hears about Kino's pearl, he...
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The Pearl
The Song of the Family reflects the contentment Kino feels at his simple, idyllic life beside the sea with his wife and son. It includes various elements of his family life: the sound of the waves...
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The Pearl
Juana is a static character whose personality and perspective does not change throughout the story. Unlike her husband, Kino, who changes into a greedy, obsessed man after discovering the Pearl of...
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The Pearl
Familial relationships are one of the most important themes in The Pearl by John Steinbeck. The family of Kino, his wife, Juana, and their son, Coyotito, is very tight-knit, and the story begins...
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The Pearl
One of Juana's main characteristics is her kindness. She thinks of others first and does everything she can to help them. For the most part, she takes care of the modest home, caring for her...
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The Pearl
Kino's first mistake is announcing that he has discovered the Pearl of the World. Word of Kino's discovery quickly spreads throughout the village and town as jealous individuals begin plotting his...
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The Pearl
In The Pearl, Kino's life, while poor and hard, does not seem to be a bad one at the beginning of the story. Evil enters the family when the scorpion stings his son, Coyotito, demonstrating that...
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The Pearl
It would seem that Kino does choose his fate. For, after the pearl dealers offer him far less than the Pearl of the World is worth, he refuses when Juana urges him to crush the pearl between two...
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The Pearl
The above excerpt emphasizes the notion that events in life are ultimately beyond our control. According to this way of looking at the world, everything that happens is determined by chance, or...
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The Pearl
As a married couple, Kino and Juana at first seem very comparable. They share the same values of hard work, devotion to their baby boy, and sense of community. They seem to conform to traditional...
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The Pearl
The "ghostly gleam" could be seen to foreshadow the many troubles that the pearl brings to Kino and his family. Initially, Kino thinks that the pearl is the answer to all his prayers. With such a...
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The Pearl
As Kino and his family head for the north in chapter5 with his pearl, his brother, Juan Tomas, tells him that the wind is "good" because "there will be no tracks." It is rough wind. This kind of...
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The Pearl
Numerous elements of the setting that John Steinbeck provides in chapter 4 prefigure future developments. One element that the author uses is the weather in La Paz as it changes. He references the...
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The Pearl
At the beginning of chapter 4, it is established that all the pearl buyers in town work for a single buyer and are tasked with driving down the price of each pearl so their employer can enjoy a...
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The Pearl
As Kino and Juana enter the town carrying their sick child, the beggars sitting outside of the church quickly analyze them and determine that they are poverty-stricken people. Steinbeck describes...
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The Pearl
The Pearl by John Steinbeck is most definitely a work of social criticism. At the forefront of the story we see The Pearl as a simple parable teaching readers that greed is bad. Greed is the main...
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The Pearl
Kino thinks that the pearl is the answer to all his prayers. Now that he's in possession of this valuable object, he's certain that all he has to do is sell it for a huge sum of money, and he and...
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The Pearl
The Songs in The Pearl are all part of the Song of Life. They are a reflection of the native beliefs that the people of Mexico once had before the coming of the Europeans. They are for all aspects...
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The Pearl
Poor indigenous folk like Kino and his family live in brush houses, primitive dwelling places made out of scrub vegetation. The social and racial elite, such as the doctor, never venture out to...
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The Pearl
In The Pearl, the land is generally the realm of concrete fact and the undersea a world of possibility. On land, John Steinbeck describes many settings in detail, which gives the reader a solid...
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The Pearl
Untamed ambition is one of the main themes in John Steinbeck's The Pearl, and it destroys the lives of the main characters. Greed and ambition are evident in almost every character, first seen in...
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The Pearl
One strategy for active reading is to use all of the information provided by the author to find deep meaning in texts. Taking a close look at character names is an effective strategy toward making...
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The Pearl
Chapter three of The Pearl, by John Steinbeck, begins this way: A town is a thing like a colonial animal. A town has a nervous system and a head and shoulders and feet. A town is a thing...
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The Pearl
We see class inequality from the very beginning of the story. Kino and Juana live in a small hut with their baby, but they seem happy. This happiness ends when Coyotito is stung by a scorpion. A...
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The Pearl
In The Pearl, John Steinbeck deploys a powerful central symbol to support his critique of materialism. Greed motivates desire for wealth and prosperity, which many of the characters display....
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The Pearl
In The Pearl, wealth is virtually synonymous with power. Those with money are invariably the ones who exercise power, both social and political. This helps to explain why the doctor is so...
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The Pearl
Communalism, or community, is a significant theme in Steinbeck’s The Pearl. This begins with Kino and Juana’s emphasis on the importance of family. The couple relies on their family members in...
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The Pearl
The first line of the story tells you that it is a story of how the pearl was found and lost again, so you know right away that Kino does not keep the pearl, but you do not know how. We are also...
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The Pearl
Racism can be seen most prominently in how the doctor treats Kino. The doctor is part of the racial elite; as such, he looks down on indigenous people like Kino, seeing them as racially inferior....
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The Pearl
The beginning of the novella "The Pearl" by John Steinbeck outlines a day in the life of the people in the Gulf. It is tranquil, idyllic, and, while there are stresses, it is a fairly peaceful and...
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The Pearl
In chapter three, Kino begins to dream about everything he can purchase after selling his extremely rare and expensive pearl. When Juan Tomás asks Kino what he will do now that he has become a...
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The Pearl
Colonialism oppresses Kino's people, who are considered second-class citizens and are prohibited from accessing certain rights and privileges that only European colonists can experience on a daily...
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The Pearl
Kino's people are poor and oppressed. Though this is the land of their ancestors, political and economic power has long since been taken away from them by Spanish colonialists, who thought they...
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The Pearl
The pearl buyer’s trick of rolling the coin through his fingers is symbolic of his “trickery” with money. Kino is aware that the pearl buyers are in league with each other, but he decides to...
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The Pearl
In chapter four, John Steinbeck tells us about the pearl buyers. We learn that the pearl buyers used to be individuals who bid against each other, therefore sometimes driving the price up too much...
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The Pearl
Early into chapter two of John Steinbeck's The Pearl, the morning is described as being "young" and possessing a "hazy mirage." In order to understand what this image looks like, one can dissect...
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The Pearl
"The Pearl" teaches us that in order to fight a corrupt establishment, we must join together and not try to fight it alone. When Kino found the Pearl, he tries to hide the Pearl on his own and to...
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The Pearl
The characters in The Pearl face numerous obstacles throughout the course of the novel's plot. Poverty is an underlying issue throughout the novel and is a key factor in the development of other...
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The Pearl
At the start of the story, when the baby Coyotito is stung by a scorpion, his mother Juana instantly resolves to save him no matter what it takes. Juana's strength of character has always...
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The Pearl
It's a metaphorical expression. Kino's knuckles aren't literally burning; he's just ready to fight to protect his family from the doctor and his men. He already has good reason not to trust the...
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The Pearl
Parables are stories or images which teach some moral or truth. Generally parables are drawn from the everyday lives of the audience. Steinbeck wants the reader to regard the story in The Pearl...
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The Pearl
It is not that money is the “root of all evil,” but the love of money. In Kino’s case, it is what that money can bring to his life to change it for the better. In Chapter 1, it is clear that...
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The Pearl
The King of Spain once harvested pearls from the oyster beds of Mexico. Kino seems to enjoy the legacy of harvesting pearls from the same beds that made the King of Spain rich and powerful. This...
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The Pearl
Juana has just had a horrible experience with Kino. She knows the pearl is evil and tried to throw it back into the sea. Kino attacks her, hits her in the face with his fist, and kicks her in the...
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The Pearl
In Steinbeck's The Pearl, the pearl buyer who practices "sleight of hand" with the coin is setting the mood for this chapter, in some ways providing foreshadowing. The use of sleight of hand is...
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The Pearl
Yes. Absolutely. If you read the text carefully the omniscient narrator clearly tells us that this is what the doctor does, and that this is something he does on a regular basis, to ensure that his...
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The Pearl
The song of evil comes into Kino’s head as the priest comes to help Coyotito. Kino knows that his people were once "great makers of songs," and although there are no new songs, the songs remain...
