The Pearl is a fictional novella written by American author, John Steinbeck. It was published in 1947 by The Viking Press. This story consists of six chapter and 90 pages. It also consists of a standard plot focusing mainly on the character structure of the protagonist.
This story starts off with Kino, a poor Mexican Indian who works as a pearl diver. He lives with his wife, Juana and his infant son, Coyotito. Kino and Juana eat breakfast next to a fire pit until they see a tiny movement on the ropes that held the hanging box where their son lies. A scorpion was delicately moving down the rope towards the box. Kino attempts to catch the scorpion, but Coyotito shakes the rope which causes the scorpion to fall on the baby’s shoulder and stings him. Kino kills the scorpion, but Juana found the baby’s puncture with redness forming. The screams of the baby brought the neighbors to their doorstep. The neighbors warn Kino and Juana that the doctor will not come to a cluster of brush houses because he rather takes care of the rich people. Juana and Kino decide to go to the doctor instead, but they get turn down because they could not pay and the doctor was racist. Kino and Juana take Coyotito down to the sea. Kino dives and attempts to look for pearls. He finds an immense oyster and in it lays a miraculous and massive pearl.
The news traveled around La Paz. Kino’s brother, Juan Thomas, asks him what he will do with his wealth. Kino envisions getting married to Juana in a church and sending his son to school. The doctor who turned them down visits them and decides to treat Coyotito, who was already healing. The doctor insists that the poison is still in Coyotito’s body, so he gives Coyotito a capsule which will bring back the illness. Coyotito begins to vomit and his face flushes. The doctor comes back and pours ammonia down the baby’s throat which heals him. Kino says that he will pay the doctor once he sells the pearl. That night, a thief invades their home, but Kino chases him away. Juana thinks that the pearl is evil and that they should get rid of it, but Kino wants to sell the pearl first.
The next morning, Kino attempts to sell the pearl, but was not satisfied with the amount of pesos the dealers offered. He decides to sell the pearl in the capital. Later that night, more thieves attacks Kino. Juana wants too get rid of the pearl, but Kino refused. In the middle of the night, Juana attempts to throw the pearl into the sea, but Kino stops her and hits her. While he walks back to his house, a group of men ambushes him. He pulls out his knife and kills one man causing the rest to flee. Kino and Juana decided to run away because nobody will believe that it was self defense.
When they were making their way to the capital, they noticed that they were being followed by three trackers. Juana and Kino hide in a cave while Kino tries to kill the trackers before the late moon rises. Coyotito’s cry awakens the sleepers. The trackers have mistaken it as a coyote pup, so they fire a rifle in the direction of the cave. Kino makes his move and kills all of them gruesomely. Then, he realizes that his son was dead.
Kino and Juana returns to La Paz the next morning. Kino holds a rifle that he stole from one of the trackers while Juana holds a bloody blanket with the remains of Coyotito. They clear the brush that edges the beach and pick their way down the shore toward the water. Kino looks at the pearl one last time and sees Coyotito’s head getting blown off. He flings his arm with all his might and watches it disappear in the water.
This story takes place in a small village in La Paz, Mexico during the colonial era. The people are oppressed and they lived in brush houses. They make a living by fishing and collecting pearls. Discrimination was a prominent situation during this time. The European doctor turned down Coyotito because the parents were Indians and poor. One important setting was the gulf. In the book, it tells the reader that things are not as always what they seem. “The uncertain air that magnified some things and blotted out others hung over the whole Gulf so that all sights were unreal and vision could not be trusted; so that sea and land had the sharp clarities and the vagueness of a dream.” (ch. 2 paragraph 4)
The characters in this story are described indirectly. Kino is the protagonist who works hard and protects his family. He is a dynamic character because he was content with his life at first, but became corrupted and greedy after finding the pearl. He was violent and only cared about the fortune of the pearl. Juana is also a hard worker. She nurses Coyotito, builds fire for corncakes, and prays in times of distress. She is a static character because she does not change throughout the story and her feelings towards Kino stayed the same despite the fact that he kicked and struck her for the pearl. She was faithful and believed that her woman soul could not live without a man in her life. Coyotito is also a static character because the story does not clearly state what his character is like. The antagonists are the dealers, trackers, and the doctor. All of them are greedy and mendacious. They are the cause of Kino’s misery because they all tried to deceive him in order to keep the treasure to themselves.
The exposition of the story begins in a village in La Paz, Mexico where a family of three lived: Kino, Juana, and their infant son Coyotito. In the rising action, a scorpion stings Coyotito. The doctor refuses to treat the baby because he is racist. Kino finds an enormous pearl and wants to sell it. The dealers were dishonest with Kino and want to swindle him. Kino refuses to sell the pearl and thieves end up attacking Kino. Juana believes that the pearl is evil, so she attempts to throw it into the sea. Kino catches her and hits her due to the greed he had for the pearl. The climax is when Kino unintentionally murders a thief who tried to steal the pearl. This scene reveals how depraved the pearl is. The falling action is when the family flees to the mountains and finds themselves being chased by trackers. Juana and Coyotito hide in a cave while Kino attempts to attack the trackers. Coyotito cries and one of the trackers fires a rifle towards that direction. Kino makes his move and ends up killing all of them. He then hears the cry of death. His son has died. The resolution of this story is when Kino and Juana returns to the village and throws the pearl back into the ocean. The subplot of this story was the racial discrimination the doctor and dealers had against Kino. The dealers were fraudulent with Kino because he was inferior and not the same race.
The conflicts in this story are both internal and external. For the internal conflict, a scorpion stings Coyotito which causes him to be very ill. Kino did not have money, so the doctor refuses to treat Coyotito. For the external conflict, Kino struggles to protect the pearl by fighting off thieves. The pearl is the main conflict because people attempted to steal it away which caused all the violence and death of Coyotito.
The theme of this story is greed. At first, Kino was content with his life. After finding the pearl, he became truculent and only focused on wealth.  The pearl became Kino’s soul. Greed dispersed around the village and people commits acts of violence towards Kino and attempts to steal the pearl. The pearl transformed from a symbol of hope to a symbol of human destruction.
This fictional story is written in third person omniscient. The word choices are modern, simple, and unambiguous. It presents visual and auditory imagery that makes it easy for the readers to create the scenes in their minds. The tone of the narrator’s voice is calm but foreboding as tension builds up. This story is a parable, so everyone will take his/her meaning from it and read his/her life into it.
The title of the book tells the readers exactly what the book is about. It is the central symbol and theme of the story. The pearl was the cause of the conflicts that Kino faced throughout the story.  Steinbeck uses symbolism throughout the story. The pearl was first presented as luck and fortune, but becomes a symbol of evil and greed as the story progresses. The scorpion represents the destruction on the innocents such as Coyotito. The canoe symbolizes the culture and ancestors of Kino. It was passed down through generations. It also represents luck because Kino found the pearl on that canoe. The author also uses metaphors, personification, and foreshadowing. He describes how the town is like a colonial animal and how the nerves of the town were pulsing and vibrating. A foreshadow would be the cry of death Kino heard after he killed the trackers. It did not mention that Coyotito died until the last chapter.
John Ernst Steinbeck was born on February 27, 1902 in Salinas California. He attended Stanford University, but did not graduate. Instead, he chose to support himself by doing manual labor while writing in his spare time. He was married three times. Steinbeck's first three novels, The Pastures of Heaven (1932) and To a God Unknown (1933), received tepid reviews. It wasn't until Tortilla Flat (1935), a humorous novel about paisano life in the Monterey region, was released. He achieved success with that novel. He served as a war correspondent for the New York Herald Tribune during World War II. Around this same time, he traveled to Mexico to collect marine life with Edward F. Ricketts, a marine biologist. Their collaboration resulted in the book Sea of Cortez (1941), which describes marine life in the Gulf of California. Steinbeck's novels can all be classified as social novels dealing with the economic problems of rural labor. He was the winner of the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature. His works are considered classics of Western literature. He died in New York City in 1968 due to heart failure.
According to Delta Book Reviews 2011, it is “a simple story with a big message.” I agree with this review because the story is simply written with modernized language and the events are in chronological order. After the end of the book, I learned that people can become materialistic which can destroy society. According to Blogcritics 2013, “Steinbeck’s ambiguous conclusion is as telling as Kino’s grand epithet for his treasure: the worlds we envision are never as certain as they seem.” I agree that the worlds we envision are never as certain as they seem. We sometimes set our expectations so high that we never think of the struggles we may have to face in order to reach our goals.
I was dumbstruck after reading this novel. I did not like the tragic ending and was disappointed on how the family went through all the struggles without gaining anything. This story demonstrates how bad things happen to good people.  All the family wanted was a better life, but they ended up losing the most valuable thing they had. I highly recommend this novel to teens and adults because they may learn a valuable lesson from it.