What happens to Coyotito in chapter 1 of The Pearl?
In chapter 1, Kino and his wife, Juana, wake up on a beautiful morning and go through their regular routine to start the day. After the couple finishes eating breakfast, they notice a tiny movement coming from Coyotito's hanging basket. Kino and Juana freeze as they watch a scorpion slowly crawl down the rope toward their infant son. Kino begins to hear the Song of Evil as Juana repeats an ancient magic spell and mutters a Hail Mary to protect her son. Kino moves smoothly and silently toward his son's basket but cannot prevent the scorpion from stinging Coyotito. When Coyotito shakes the rope attached to his basket, the scorpion falls on him and stings his shoulder. Kino then kills the scorpion as Juana attempts to suck the venom from her child's shoulder. Kino and Juana take their son to the doctor in the village, but he refuses to see...
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them because they are poor Natives. It is only after Kino finds the Pearl of the World that the doctor agrees to see Coyotito.
Baby Coyoitio, the son of Kino and Juana, faces a dangerous situation in chapter one of John Steinbeck's The Pearl. The chapter opens with Kino walking into the morning sun and Juana making breakfast. The text illustrates how much Kino's family means to him as it shows him becoming overwhelmed by his love for them.
Kino returns to the house as Juana continues to prepare breakfast. Kino then eats his breakfast, and Juana beings to eat hers. As Kino looks toward Coyoitio's crib, he notices a scorpion on the rope (which leads into the crib). Although he tries hard to catch the scorpion before it can reach Coyoitio, the scorpion falls onto the baby's shoulder and stings him. This scorpion sting could kill the baby.
Why does Coyotito die in 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 use the money he makes from selling the pearl to save Coyotito from the scorpion’s sting, but, in the end, the wound heals itself and the poison does no harm, while the pearl further endangers Coyotito by drawing the sinister and avaricious doctor to Kino’s home.
When he thinks about how to spend the money he will make from the pearl, Kino’s principal reflections concern Coyotito:
In the pearl he saw Coyotito sitting at a little desk in a school, just as Kino had once seen it through an open door. And Coyotito was dressed in a jacket, and he had on a white collar, and a broad silken tie. Moreover, Coyotito was writing on a big piece of paper. Kino looked at his neighbors fiercely. "My son will go to school," he said, and the neighbors were hushed.
Since Kino’s highest aspirations for the pearl were to use it to help his son, it is only fitting, and bitterly ironic, that his attachment to the pearl eventually kills Coyotito. The image of Coyotito he sees in the pearl at the end of the story then provides him with the impetus to throw it into the sea:
And in the surface of the pearl he saw Coyotito lying in the little cave with the top of his head shot away. And the pearl was ugly; it was gray, like a malignant growth. And Kino heard the music of the pearl, distorted and insane.
Once Coyotito is dead, the destructive influence of the pearl is complete.