Throughout this novel The Pearl by John Steinbeck the most obvious and clear symbol of this novel is the giant pearl. Kino is a humble family from La Paz, Baja California in Mexico, his son gets stung by the scorpion and hiring a doctor to cure is too expensive for Kino. Aside from that his doctor is very unfair starts towards Kino for example, "'Have I nothing better to do than cure insect bites for 'little Indians? I am a doctor, not a veterinary'" (14).” Desperate to save to his son is to go off shore deep diving I hopes to find some sort of treasure. Soon enough Kino comes across this giant pearl, so big that soon everyone wants it. Sometimes irony has a funny way of showing up in our life, the pearl first shows up in the story as the ultimatum to healing his son but in the end it has truly no true worth. The definition of a symbol or use of symbolism is the object representing an idea or qualities. The reason why I choose the pearl is the fact that sometimes we put …show more content…
It lay over the water and through the mountains, over a thousand miles, and every strange terrible mile was frightening. But Kino had lost his old world and he must clamber on to a new one" (69). This is what Kino is facing with once he meets with some sellers, for the first time he starts to feel fear that he has this fear for this pearl he has in his possession. "This was an evil beyond thinking. The killing of a man was not so evil as the killing of a boat. For a boat does not have sons, and a boat cannot protect itself, and a wounded boat does not heal. There was sorrow in Kino's rage, but this last thing had tightened him beyond breaking. He was an animal now, for hiding, for attacking, and he lived only to preserve himself and his family" (80). This pearl shows Kino’s killer instinct and what he is capable and scares both him and his wife