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Insightful Student
Mrs. Slucher
English 11
17 March 2013
The Pearl
Among the population of Southern California and the Baja Peninsula of Mexico in the
mid 20th century were a varied group of people. Of these, many were impoverished, underserved
laborers, migrant farmers, and people on the margin. John Steinbeck, having worked among
them intimately understood their plight and wrote The Pearl to communicate the challenges
faced by the family of one poor pearl diver living near the town of La Paz, on the Gulf of
Mexico. The Pearl was written as a parable, revealing the allegorical journey of this family to
teach a moral lesson. The fisherman’s discovery of a simple, precious pearl becomes the story of
good, evil, and the journey towards the Kingdom of God, all of which are embodied in the prized
pearl.
John Steinbeck, the author of The Pearl, was born in Salinas, California in 1902 to John
Ernst Steinbeck and Olive Hamilton Steinbeck. He was among four children born to the
Steinbeck’s and was their only son. His father was a flour mill manager and his mother was a
schoolteacher. John Steinbeck went to school and he also had the benefit of his parents and
siblings who exposed him to novels, the Bible, and Greek myths. While he was in high school,
he nearly died from pleural pneumonia and while he was recovering he first began writing what
he witnessed around him.
After his high school years, Steinbeck intermixed his young adult college education with
real life work experiences as a common laborer. These experiences had a profound impact on
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the subject matter of his books. Steinbeck sought to immerse himself physically and mentally
with these ‘common’ people. These work experiences demonstrated that he liked to be in the real
world and not just locked away in a college. As a maturing young man he attended college but
also explored the lives of those people, both within his community and through his work.
From 1935 through 1945, Steinbeck wrote and published many major works such as
Tortilla Flats, Of Mice and Men, The Grapes of Wrath, and Cannery Row. In 1947, Steinbeck
wrote The Pearl, which was a rendition of a Mexican folktale, which he had also written about in
Sea of Cortez in 1943. The Pearl is based upon an old Mexican folk tale that Steinbeck heard in
the Baja of California during his many expeditions with his close friend, Ed Ricketts a marine
biologist. He traveled extensively with Ed Ricketts and while on expeditions to the Gulf of
Mexico, he observed and talked to the native people of the land. It was on one of these
expeditions that he first heard the story that inspired him to write The Pearl.
Steinbeck experienced many events in his life, including the Great Depression and the
Second World War and saw the repercussions of both. He created and molded his stories and
characters based upon the common everyday interactions with the low income and impoverished
portion of society. As an author, Steinbeck was regarded as one of the 20th century America’s
most socially engaged artists. The examinations and study of the low-income, working class
people made the beautiful essence of what John Steinbeck’s books are about and especially in his
book, written in 1947, The Pearl. Steinbeck won a Pulitzer Prize and in 1962 he won the Noble
Prize for Literature. After a prolific career in writing, Steinbeck felt a need to reconnect himself
with this world so he embarked on a driving tour of the United States and documented his
experience in Travels with Charley: In Search of America. Steinbeck died in 1968 and his ashes
were buried in the family plot in a cemetery in Salinas, California.
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In The Pearl, Kino, the protagonist, is an impoverished pearl diver, living in a small town
on the Gulf of Mexico. A scorpion had stung his infant son, Coyotito, and unfortunately for
Kino and his wife, Juana, they lack money to pay the town doctor for treatment. On the day that
his son is stung, Kino goes diving and finds “The Pearl of the World” within a large oyster.
“And the beauty of the pearl, winking and glimmering in the light of the little candle, cozened
his brain with its beauty. So lovely it was, so soft, and its own music came from it – its music of
promise and delight, its guarantee of the future, of comfort, of security. Its warm lucence
promised a poultice against illness and a wall against insult. It closed the door on hunger”
(Steinbeck 39). The pearl symbolizes good. It represents salvation, opportunity, and hope to
escape from poverty. It is also a symbol of freedom and promise. The depiction of the pearl as a
physical object describes it as something warm and soothing. Its’ internal music is bright and
promising, serving to evoke a sense of opportunity and security, and a barrier against the ills of
the world. The pearl can bring materialistic salvation
The potential sale of the pearl will allow Kino to buys things, which, for an impoverished
pearl diver, is good. Kino daydreams about things he will buy. “Then to the lovely gray surface
of the pearl came the little things wanted: a harpoon to take the place of the one lost a year ago, a
new harpoon of iron with a ring in the end of the shaft; and – his mind could hardly make the
leap – a rifle – but why not, since he was so rich. And Kino saw Kino in the pearl, Kino holding
a Winchester carbine. It was the wildest daydreaming and very pleasant. His lips moved
hesitantly over this – ‘A rifle,’ he said. ‘Perhaps a rifle’ ” (24-25). Kino thinks about a better
life, one in which he can acquire material goods. Both of the things that he daydreams about are
weapons, one, which would help him fish, and the other, a rifle that could be used to hunt or
protect his family.
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After the initial excitement of finding the pearl, Kino snaps awake from his indulgent
daydreaming and looks at his son. He realizes that these personal things that he could buy are
valuable but not when compared to his son’s happiness in life. Money from the sale of the pearl
will bring an opportunity for his son to receive an education. “My son will read and open the
books, and my son will write and will know writing. And my son will make numbers, and these
things will make us free” (Steinbeck 26). Kino and his wife, Juana, are illiterate, not knowing
how to read or write. Because of this, they are always vulnerable to being manipulated by
others. Education and knowledge are certainly “good”, fortifying them against the manipulation
by others. The joy of their lives, Coyotito, will be the beneficiary of a better life than they have
never had. The discovery of the pearl is the miracle that Kino and Juana not only needed to save
their only son, Coyotito, from the poison of the scorpion sting, but it now is also a wealth of yet
unexplored possibilities. “In the surface of the great pearl he could see dreams form” (Steinbeck
19). The discovery of the pearl is the introduction to a new future and the pearl embodies all the
possible realization of all of the dreams that they may have ever had.
The “pearl of the world” is a blessing, bestowed upon Kino and his family, “... at first
symbolizes beauty and hope...” (Meyer 29). “... for material goods and for the health and
education for his son...” (Meyer 33). “... the gem appears to offer salvation...” (Meyer 32). “... a
thing of great worth and beauty and promise...” (Meyer 36). The pearl not only offers more than
a fix to their poverty but allows for the fulfillment of the natural ideals that every man desires.
“... the fisherman’s search for security, wealth and freedom, his possession of the Pearl of the
World...” (ProQuest 5). In its’ pure essence, the pearl is perceived as the panacea for Kino’s life.
The pearl embodies all that is good, and the sale of the pearl offers Earthly opportunities “... a
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church marriage, new clothes, a harpoon, a rifle- to a wholly selfless, idealistic thoughts of
sending Coyotito to school.” (Levant 191-192).
The pearl has brought Kino and his family so much promise and potential for good, that it
is hard to imagine it being evil as well, yet the pearl houses an impurity, one that counters
‘good’. The evilness of the pearl is subtle in the beginning, but grows throughout the story. It’s
impurity drives Kino from goodness towards the darkness within him. When Kino embraces the
darkness within him and is seduced by the devil, only bad things will occur. The pearl even
breeds greed, hatred, and coldness among all those who come into contact with it.
Upon the realization that good future has been thwarted by the corrupt town pearl buyers,
it becomes too much for Kino to handle as he insists upon going to the capital to get the most
money for his pearl. He slowly starts to fade from being a good and rational human to becoming
a sort of monster guarding its treasure, willing to give up anything to keep it away from others.
Kino cannot see what he is becoming, but his wife and the one he loves most is a first hand
witness of his transformation from being a good man to a desperate and insane one. Juana
realizes that the pearl is controlling Kino’s mind and she knows that the pearl is purely bad.
Instead of being their salvation, it will be their destruction. Juana sees the descent of Kino into
the animal-like state of mind. He is losing touch with reality and only hears the so-called Song of
the Pearl, which takes precedence over his wife and family. “Now the tension which has been
growing in Juana boiled up to the surface and her lips were thin. ‘This thing is evil,’ she cried
harshly. ‘This pearl is like a sin! It will destroy us,’ and her voice rose shrilly” (Steinbeck 38).
Later, Juana implores, “Kino, this pearl is evil. Let us destroy it before it destroys us. Let us
crush it between two stones. Let us – let us throw it back in the sea where it belongs. Kino, it is
evil, it is evil” (56). She wants to crush it much like Kino crushed the scorpion. Even the
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townspeople recognize that the pearl will corrupt Kino. “…that the sudden wealth would not turn
Kino’s head, would not make a rich man of him, would not graft onto him the evil limbs of greed
and hatred and coldness” (Steinbeck 43). Kino is relinquishing himself to an inanimate object
and chooses it over his family. The outside forces push onto Kino’s conscious and moral
qualities, weakening them while also planting the seeds of self-destruction caused by the evilness
of the pearl. Even though Kino was given multiple warnings, the pearl touched the darkness
within Kino. It caused a yearning to give into the ultimate evil action, killing people, a mortal
sin.
After Juana’s begging fails, Kino's brother, Juan, tries to approach Kino, so that he might
let the pearl go. Juan also recognizes what is happening to Kino and his family and knows that
even though Kino’s ambitions are for a good cause he is afraid that the pearl will cost more to
retain than will be gained. Like Juana, Juan realizes that it has become the devil. Only by getting
rid of it will Kino’s soul, and his family, will be set free. Juan says to his brother, “It is the
pearl,” said Juan Tomas. ‘There is a devil in this pearl. You should have sold it and passed on the
devil. Perhaps you can still sell it and buy peace for yourself” (64-65). Evil has taken over and
darkened the light, the final interpretation of the evilness of the pearl is that it has tainted Kino’s
mind so much that Kino cannot pull himself away from the pearl even though he sees what is
going on around him and his family. He has truly been seduced by the devil.
The inevitable has happened and the pearl is now an “agent of evil.” Treasures can
enshrine a man’s soul. Kino places too great a value on his pearl because he believes that the
material gains are more important than being a good man. “... the root of social evil is in the act
of possession. Owning something of value brings about a corruption of the soul, because it
enshrines a materialistic concern rather than a cultivation of direct compassion for one’s
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fellows.” (Works 6). As in this case of the ‘pearl of the world,’ if you own something of material
value, you become only concerned with it, and not the more important things of life. Once
found, an object as simple as a pearl may spin a web of greed among those who come into
contact with it. “So a complex of greed, money, and pearls is established.” (Levant 200). The
only things of value have been materialistic things, and not concerned with God, family and
other people. The pearl makes Kino abandon his soul, and it breeds greed, hatred and contempt.
Once he decides to travel to the capital in hopes of selling it for a higher price, Kino has
consciously faced a decision and made the wrong choice. By executing this plan, he jeopardizes
all that himself and his family. As this author points out, “On the other hand, Kino’s
revolutionary decision to go to the capital in order to sell the great pearl himself could be seen as
the foolhardy act of a narcissistic youth whose concern with satisfying of his own vengeance and
the appeasing of his own needs jeopardized his whole family’s future. (MacMillan 6). In the
end, Kino is consumed the selling the pearl. His only concern is only for himself and his own
satisfaction, not his wife or son. He has abandoned the things he once stood for – family, home,
and a simple life.
In The Pearl, Steinbeck recounts the fall of Kino from a good and comforting family life
to the base symptoms and reactions of man’s animalistic nature. In a parable similar to those
found in the Bible, Steinbeck provides Kino’s descent from a good man to a man only concerned
with his own individual ambitions. Kino really had God in his hand when he first found the
pearl, but he chose to abuse the gift, which he was given, by selling it for material goods.
According to the New Testament, Matthew 13:45-46, “the kingdom of heaven is like a
merchant’s search for fine pearls. When he found one really valuable pearl, he went back and
put up for sale all that he had and bought it.” In fact, Kino always had Kingdom of God in his
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hand, but he failed to realize it. Instead of treasuring the pearl, he sought to sell it for material
goods. By throwing it back into the sea, he returned the pearl from whence it came, its origin.
By doing so, Kino embraced the third journey – the inescapable third journey, the journey to the
Kingdom of Heaven and judgment day. In Kino’s case, when faced with evilness and corruptness
of the pearl buyers, Kino mistakenly believed that he must keep it. In fact, Kino subconsciously
recognized that the pearl was causing internal strife within him, and that the true battle was the
battle for his soul – good battling evil. He finally admits that, “This pearl has become my soul.
If I give it up I shall lose my soul” (Steinbeck 67). He mistakenly thinks that by continuing to
keep the pearl is ‘good’ thing, when in fact it was ‘bad’.
Regardless of the evil that surrounded the pearl, the pearl itself could not be anything but
good and a gracious gift. The pearl was not causing the problems that Kino, Juana and the
townspeople were experiencing. The problems that they were experiencing were caused by their
own wants and ambitions. These temptations were too much for so many people that they could
not resist and gave in to their immoral nature. As Kino looked at the great pearl for the first time,
he saw that the pearl was perfect - the pearl was perfect just like God. “...It lay, the great pearl,
perfect as the moon. It captured the light and refined it and gave it back in silver incandescence.
It was as large as a sea gull’s egg. It was the greatest pearl in the world” (Steinbeck 18). This
prized pearl is described as ‘perfect’, and the description of its luminary qualities is a reference
to the warmth, glow, and guidance of God.
Steinbeck named Kino after a Jesuit missionary to Mexico and had studied the Bible – he
knew Catholic teachings. In The Pearl, the constant struggle within Kino of good versus evil,
God versus the devil, similar to stories within the Bible, is truly the experience of everyman. It
is a daily struggle to honor God and reject the pursuit of material wealth. “Of course the author’s
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deliberate identification of the story as a parable underscores the biblical theme of the sacrifice
of a possibility of heaven for material goods” (Schultz 1). This quote is extremely clear and
straightforward: Kino faces everyman’s dilemma of balancing God versus material acquisitions.
By throwing away the pearl, Kino rejects the pearl’s battle of good versus bad, the battle for his
soul. Only without having the pearl in his life can he refocus upon himself, his wife, and his
pursuit of eternal life. As Meyer, another literary critic states, “The full significance of Kino’s
throwing the pearl back into the sea now becomes clear: the act represents the willingness to
accept a third journey....... They must apply their new knowledge and win their way to eternal
salvation,....This knowledge is the tool that he needs to help him on the final journey, the
inescapable journey that Everyman must take” (Meyer 40). Again, this is very clear. By
stopping man’s insistence of overlaying good and evil on Earthly objects, only by throwing the
pearl back does Kino recognize that his journey henceforth will be about being true to himself,
his wife, and his God.
The spiritual journey that Kino embarks upon is the most important aspect of story.
Although it recounts Kino physical journey, it is really about his spiritual struggles and eventual
growth. “The surface story is told in a manner which urges the reader to look beyond the
physical events into their spiritual significance” (Lisca 220). Kino rejects the Earthly evil and
opens himself to family and God.
The Pearl, is a well-versed parable documenting how Kino, ‘man’, traveled through life,
making choices everyday. It was a journey in which he faced both good and evil, how he
ultimately fell to temptation, but then consciously chose to do the right thing, all of which was
embodies in a simple pearl. By relinquishing the pearl back to the ocean, he ultimately learned
what life and God is meant to be. He had redeemed himself be abandoning the material goods
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and opened himself to the Kingdom of God. Without God, man is nothing more than an animal;
with God, there is a possibility of salvation.
Steinbeck speaks about the common man and his experiences. He exposed the
circumstances that the poor and lesser educated live within and brings to light those moral
struggles and lessons of the common man. Steinbeck portrayed the world as he experienced it.
He wrote many great works throughout his life including, The Pearl. His message of what life on
Earth is about, giving voice to the common man and his experiences is very engaging and
enlightening. This is why Steinbeck remains one of the greatest authors and why every young
reader should read one of his works, especially, The Pearl.
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Works Cited
Holy Bible. Bishops’ Committee of the Confraternity of Christine Doctrine. Cleveland: Collins
World, 1976. Print. The New American Bible.
“John Steinbeck.” American Cultural Leaders. 2001 eLibrary. Web. 11 Feb. 2013.
Levant, John. The Novels of John Steinbeck A Critical Study. Columbia: University of Missouri
Press, 1974. Print.
Lisca, Peter. The Wide World of John Steinbeck. Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1958.
Print.
Meyer, Michael J. Readings on The Pearl, The Nature of Good and Evil in The Pearl. San
Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1999. Print.
Price, Michael. "Champion of the Common Man: John Steinbeck and His Achievement." John
Steinbeck, Bloom Biocritiques. Bloom’s Literary Reference Online, 2002. Web. 11 Feb.
2013.
Shillinglaw, Susan. "Saturday Review: John Steinbeck." The Guardian. ProQuest, 2 Feb. 2002.
Web. 11 Feb. 2013.
"Steinbeck, John." The Reader’s Companion to American History. 1991. eLibrary. Web. 11 Feb.
2013.
"Steinbeck, John, 1902-1968." ProQuest Biographies. ProQuest, 2006. Web. 11 Feb. 2013.
Steinbeck, John. Works of John Steinbeck: Critical Commentary. MacMillan General Reference,
1963. eLibrary. Web. 11 Feb. 2013.
Tedlock, E.W. Jr, and C.V. Wicker. Steinbeck and His Critics. Albuquerque: The University of
New Mexico Press, 1957. Print.
"Who Was Ed Ricketts and How Did He Affect The Pearl?" Works of John Steinbeck: Critical
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Commentary. Elibrary, n.d. Web. 11 Feb. 2013.
"Works of John Steinbeck: Introduction." eLibrary, 1990. Web. 11 Feb. 2013.