Theme Of Greed In John Steinbeck

The Pearl Essay: Greed In the novel The Pearl, written by John Steinbeck, greed has a large impact on how the story flows and takes place. All throughout the story, greed is changing the way people think and the actions that they will take, regardless if that is who they truly are or not. Greed takes control over people’s minds and it changes them forever. What the author is trying to say is that greed is a powerful thing; once you come across it, you will never be the same person you once were again. John Steinbeck shows the effects of greed using different literary devices; these devices include characterization, foreshadowing and symbolism. To begin, characterization is one of quite a few different literary devices that is used in The Pearl to describe greed’s horrible effects. The first example is, of course, the main character Kino. In the beginning of the story,

In The Pearl, one example of foreshadowing is the ants that the author continuously mentions. At the beginning of the story, there were said to have been big ants and little ants busy on the ground. There was also a lion ant who dug a sand trap that the little, dusty ants were trying to escape from. This also relates to how later in the story, the big ants are the rich people, the dusty ants are the poor people and the poor people were trying to escape the evil reign of the doctor and his servants. Another example of how the author uses ants with foreshadowing is when he says, “[Kino] watched the ants moving, a little column of them near to his foot, and he put his foot in their path. Then the column climbed over his instep and continued on its way, and Kino left his foot there and watched them move over it,” (Steinbeck, 68). This foreshadows that when he returns to La Paz, the people will just continue on through life and not pay any attention to him, which is proven to be true at the end of the