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The Pearl
The community in which Kino and his family live is dominated by the Roman Catholic Church. The priest is extremely influential in the affairs of the town. Kino and Juana are firm believers in the...
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The Pearl
John Steinbeck's novella The Pearl was published in 1947. It tells the story of a poor family, father Kino, mother Juana, and child Coyotito, who try to live with the consequences of Kino's...
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Literature
One of the main themes of The Pearl is the destructive power of greed. Kino disregards the safety and love of his family to pursue selling the pearl he finds. When the pearl brokers offer him a...
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The Pearl
The pearl buyers are excited about Kino's pearl because of its magnificent quality and size. The news has swept the town: "Kino has found the Pearl of the World." It is a fantastic pearl of great...
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The Pearl
Kino hopes that the Pearl of the World will open new parts of his world for his family and free them from their poverty and ignorance. The music of the pearl had merged with the music of the...
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The Pearl
An omniscient or third-person narrator is a voice that tells the story and that knows everything that happens in the story, beyond the knowledge of the characters. For example, when Kino and Juana...
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The Pearl
Kino decides to take his pearl to the capital himself so that he can’t be cheated. Kino thinks that he has solved all of his problems when he finds the Pearl of the World. He has never had more...
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The Pearl
The main character is Kino. Kino is an aboriginal in Baja California. He is a fisherman, and he lives in a brush hut in a village by the sea with his wife Juana and their baby Coyotito. Kino...
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The Pearl
Juana trusts the doctor when she shouldn't. Juana’s greatest weakness is that she is too trusting. She tries to get the doctor for her baby. When Coyotito is attacked by the scorpion. Kino...
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The Pearl
After the scorpion bites her baby, Juana's simple, but relatively peaceful life becomes disturbed and complicated by reversals of fortune. Before her baby is bitten by the scorpion, Juana is...
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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
Your topic can be interpreted different ways, but my first thought is that if Kino had not been so desperate to improve his family’s situation with the pearl, things would have turned out better....
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The Pearl
In the beginning, Kino places great hope on the pearl, believing that it will change his future and that of his family. He believes that this will give him some freedom that he never knew he did...
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The Pearl
Kino imagines the songs of his people in his head. They are not real songs, but they are the soundtrack that make up the mood of what is happening to him. He explains that his people used to sing...
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The Pearl
Kino’s wife Juana and his brother Juan Tomás felt that the pearl was evil. Kino felt that all of his troubles were over when he found the Pearl of the World. It was huge. It would be worth a...
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The Pearl
The scorpion’s significance is clear, because it sets the story moving. The baby is threatened, and the family wants money to go to a doctor. Soon after, Kino finds a pearl. However, the...
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The Pearl
In The Pearl, the protagonist, Kino, and his wife, Juana, find a huge pearl that they believe could make their family rich. The pearl potentially offers their family many things that Juana wants:...
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The Pearl
The doctor has no interest in treating Coyotito until Kino finds the pearl, and Coyotito was getting better before seeing the doctor. Coyotito is stung by a scorpion, which is of course very...
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The Pearl
The first thing that Kino imagines upon finding the pearl is that he will be able to afford a doctor for his son, Coyotito, who was stung by a scorpion. As the novel progresses, Kino's imagination...
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The Pearl
A town is a “colonial animal” because news travels so fast it seems to have a memory and motivation of its own. When we are told that a town has “a nervous system and a head and shoulders and...
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The Pearl
Insanity in The Pearl is linked to ideas of stability and continuity. Despite Kino’s poverty at the story’s outset, we can see that as long as his life remains undisturbed he has a chance at...
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The Pearl
The Pearl by John Steinbeck is a passionate condemnation of the effects of materialism and economic inequality on society. The predominant social issue of the story is economic inequality and its...
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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
When someone suddenly has a stroke of good luck, it is easy for those around them to become jealous. When Kino first finds the pearl he believes it is the key to success for his family, especially...
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The Pearl
The book has a third person omniscient narrator, but often follows Kino’s perspective. In many ways, Kino is the main character of the story. It is Kino who finds the pearl, and Kino who is the...
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The Pearl
The doctor’s greed causes him to treat the native Mexican people inhumanely. The doctor has the idea that the town and those around him exist solely for his own profit. He seems to dislike the...
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The Pearl
This quote means that people tend to understand things in binary oppositions: things must either be good or bad, black or white, when thought of in memories.
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The Pearl
The way Steinbeck discusses music in The Pearl allows readers to believe that there is almost a "soundtrack" to this story. If you imagine any movie you've watched and pay attention to the...
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The Pearl
The drawback to the gossip is that the family is in danger because everyone wants the pearl. When we are told that a town is like a colonial animal, this is both a good and bad thing. People all...
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The Pearl
Juana wakes before Kino because it is her duty to take care of the household. Juana is a good wife and a good mother. She takes these responsibilities seriously. The tribe’s division of labor...
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The Pearl
Finding the pearl resulted in more negative consequences than positive ones. When Kino found the pearl, he thought that all of his problems were solved. He expected to be able to sell it and he...
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The Pearl
The struggle of the animals and insects is both foreshadowing and a metaphor for Kino’s existence. Steinbeck describes the setting very carefully. When Kino wakes up, we learn about the world...
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The Pearl
Kino’s house is described as made of brush. He, Juana, and Coyotito live a simple life with few material possessions. When he finds the pearl, there are limited places in which to hide it, but he...
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The Pearl
A major theme of The Pearl is that greed can ruin not only your own life, but the lives of those you love. Kino’s life prior to his finding of the pearl is one of contentment. His needs are few,...
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The Pearl
In chapter 1 of The Pearl, the setting is simple: a hut by the ocean in which Kino lives with his wife and baby. The tone is one of peace and simplicity, even innocence. Like the Garden of Eden,...
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The Pearl
The importance of songs in Kino's mind, family, and culture can be viewed simply as a cultural practice. They are ways to give meaning to events, people, and places. But for Kino, the songs do take...
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The Pearl
One of the motifs that Steinbeck uses to illustrate the theme of good vs. evil is music. When Kino awakens, he is filled with a good feeling and he refers to the music he hears during this feeling...
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The Pearl
The doctor does not care about Kino because he is poor, and he refuses to treat the sick baby. Kino is suspicious of the doctor. Kino and his wife are aboriginals (Indians) and the doctor is one...
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The Pearl
A parable is a story that teaches a moral lesson. In The Pearl readers are presented with the idea that things are not always what they seem and greed can impede good judgement. Song of the Family...
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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
In Steinbeck's The Pearl, Juana employs the age-old technique of applying a poultice made of seaweed to baby Coyotito's swollen shoulder. As Steinbeck notes, it is as good a remedy as any other and...
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The Pearl
The Pearl is a story rich in symbolism, and the incident with the scorpion is certainly no exception. Upon discovering the scorpion at the bedside of his son, Coyotito, Kino and his wife pray....
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The Pearl
The doctor in The Pearl is a very greedy man. He was also a man filled with prejudice. When Coyotito is stung by the scorpion, Kino is desperate to get help. However, he does not like or trust...
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The Pearl
The totality of Kino’s life is his wife and child, and he is satisfied with this. To make a life for the three of them, and any other children that may come, is all he focuses on. With the...
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The Pearl
When Juana and Kino first took their baby Coyotito to the doctor, he refused to treat him, since they are natives of the country, not the conquerors of which the doctor is a part. The doctor is...
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The Pearl
John Steinbeck's The Pearl is a parable; as such it is meant to teach a moral lesson. As a social realist, Steinbeck is concerned, with "life and living," as John S. Kennedy, a friend and critic...
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The Pearl
Kino did not sell his pearl for fifteen hundred pesos because, as an experienced pearl diver, he knew that his pearl was worth much more. The pearl merchants, however, are working for one main...
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The Pearl
The Pearl can be seen as a parable of the danger of placing one’s hopes on one thing, no matter if it is material or emotional. The moment Kino finds the pearl, he dreams of how his life will...
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The Pearl
The pearl buyers are dishonest merchants, intent on cheating those people who bring them pearls to sell. They are not independent buyers but in collaboration with a main merchant, who pays them a...
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The Pearl
Consider the priest, the Father, who knows the theology and doctrine of Christianity but does not know how to apply them to real life. Instead of pity and compassion, greed overtakes him, as well...
