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John Steinbeck Sparknotes

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John Steinbeck. The Pearl. New York: Viking Press, 1947. Print.
By John Steinbeck
The Pearl is a book based on an old Mexican folk tale that involves a man, his family, and the destruction of both by a mystical pearl. The story takes place in a coastal Mexican village called La Paz. Kino, his wife Juana, and their infant son, Coyotito, reside in La Paz where they make their living off the occasional pearl that Kino is able to find. They live in a small hut just off the beach, along with the rest of the villagers. As an impoverished family, they stuggle to provide all that they wish to provide for Coyotito.

As a father, Kino yearns for nothing more than to provide his son with a good life and a decent education. Poor and unlucky, Kino searches …show more content…

As the thieves become more and more of a threat, Kino fears the loss of the pearl, his wife and son’s lives, and even his own life. After a full day of evading the thieves, Kino, Juana, and Coyotito find a cave to hide in until they are presented with an opportunity to escape. The thieves do not appear to be leaving anytime soon, so Kino decides to leave the cave and sneak down to attack them. Just as he is about to make his attack, he hears a noise. The thieves hear the noise too, and raise their rifles in the direction of the noise and fire. Just as they fire their rifles, Kino attacks and kills them. As the chaos dies down and the night returns to silence, Kino hears Juana let out a blood-curdling scream. He returns to the cave to find out that the sound that alerted the thieves was his son, Coyotito. The bullet shot by the thieves hit the infant in the skull and killed him. Kino’s blind hunger to attain the wealth needed to provide his son with a proper education, resulted in the death of his only son and his dreams died with him. Kino and Juana return to their home village with broken hearts and broken dreams. Despite the depressing nature of this book, I believe it to be one of the best books I’ve ever

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“Every man suddenly became related to Kino’s pearl, and Kino’s pearl went into the dreams, the speculations, the schemes, the plans, the futures, the wishes, the needs, the lusts, the hungers of everyone, and the only person that stood in the way and that was Kino, so that he became curiously every man’s enemy.” (page 23). This quote states that everyone envies Kino and wants the pearl’s wealth for himself or herself. Later in the book, one of these people will try to take the pearl. This will cause Kino to try to protect the pearl at all costs.

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You hit the jackpot. Enough to provide for you and your family beyond your wildest dreams. Imagine the riches it would bring, but also the darkness of human nature. Kino lives contently in a small village with his wife Juana and son Coyotito. It’s a simple but happy life.

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People thirsty for the pearl had burned Juana and Kino’s hut leaving them with nothing, but the pearl, Coyotito and themselves. Kino had a brother, Juan Tomás, that allowed them to hide out in his hut, until they were ready to leave and go live somewhere they could be safe. On the way to their safe place, trackers who are looking for the pearl and Kino are following them. Kino decides that he needs to divert the trackers away from his wife and son so he takes off running another direction away from his family. While Juana and a crying Coyotito are hiding in a cave, one of the trackers hear his cries believing that he is a baby coyote.

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Kino wanted to sell the pearl so his son Coyotito could have a good life and education, he could own a gun, so he and Juana could have a real wedding, but soon after Kino’s love for his begins to change. ¨He struck her in the face with his clenched fist and she fell among the boulders, and he kicked her in the side¨ (Steinbeck 59). After

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(65). As Kino’s house burns down the neighbors wonder whether r Kino and his family are inside, Kino can even hear all of the worried voices. If the same circumstance would have taken place at the beginning of the story, when Kino was a more honest man, he would have come out from his brother’s brush house and said that he and his family were fine, and maybe even take responsibility for killing the dead man next to the brush house. However, because Kino becomes corrupted by the power that the pearl gives him, he becomes dishonest, hides and runs away. The influence of the pearl degrades him, from a state of honesty to a state of corruption and he ends up bringing misery to himself, to his family and even to

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After giving up hope on a marriage, Kino was finally able to see his rich marriage in a church with his wife, Juana and child, Coyotito. Kino heard the sounds of Coyotito studying and reading his books, making him feel happy for Coyotito to have a life he did not. Kino saw how his family was dressed in new skirts, instead of old shawls and he imagined himself with a

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‘When we sell it at last, I will have a rifle,’ he said, and he looked into the shining surface for his rifle, but he saw only a huddled dark body on the ground with shining blood dripping from its throat.” (Steinbeck, 72). This shows that pearls can’t destroy people, but people can. Kino was using the pearl for his own benefit. He even killed for the pearl.

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Later on, in a fit of rage he abuses Juana physically with the intention to inflict pain: “He struck her in the face with his clenched face and she fell among the boulders, and he kicked her in the side” (59). This violent act demonstrates how the obession with the pearl has corrupted Kinos morals and values. Amongst the other actions Kino takes, he resorts to murdering multiple people to protect the all consuming pearl: “Here is your pearl. I found it in the path. [...] You have killed a man.

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In that night Kino was attacked in his own house. The following morning he takes it to the pearl in town to auction. However, the auction house is actually a corrupt sham and

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