The theme of The Pearl is that good people can still do evil things, as shown by Kino
having good intentions, but doing evil things to achieve these good-hearted goals. Kini
demonstrates this when he kills a man who tried to attack him and hurt Juana when she
tried to get rid of the pearl.
Kino killed a man over his greediness of the possession of the pearl. At this moment
when Kino was being attacked by a man who was trying to take his pearl, he jumped into
action and killed the man with his knife. The narrator states, “She saw two dark figures
lying in the path ahead of her. She leaped forward and saw that one was Kino and the
other a stranger with dark shiny fluid leaking from his throat.'' (page 60) This shows that
Kino did evil things with good intentions when he killed the man who tried to attack him
and steal the pearl during the night. When Juana confronted him, the narrator said “”I
was attacked,” Kino said uneasily. “I struck to save my life.”” (page 61) This shows that
Kino did a bad thing to keep the pearl so he could do good things like use the money to get
married to Juana in the church, send Coiotito to a good school to get the education Juana
and Kino never had, and to cure Coiotitos scorpion bite. But Kino did not have to go as far
as killing a man, he could have just told him to leave, or even just threaten him.
Kino ended up attacking Juana because she was trying to get rid of the pearl by
throwing it in the ocean. At this moment, Kino was very angry at Juana for sacrificing
their future by getting rid of the pearl because of some terrible mishaps. The narrator
states, “Her arm was up to throw when he leaped at her and caught her arm and wrenched
the pearl from her. He struck her in the face with his clenched fist and she fell among the
boulders, and he kicked her in the side.” (page 59) At this moment, Kino was very angry at
Juana for sacrificing their future by getting rid of the pearl because of some terrible
mishaps. This shows that Kino had to use physical force to stop Juana from getting rid of
the pearl because he knew that if she did, they would lose so many good opportunities for
Kino, Juana, and especially Coiotito.
In conclusion, even good people can do evil things. As shown by Kino having good
intentions, but doing evil things to achieve these good-hearted goals like when he killed a
man to protect the pearl and when he hurt Juana to stop her from getting rid of the pearl.
But he did these horrid things because he knew that it could give him, Juana, and
especially Coiotito many great opportunities. So now we know that good people can do evil
things, but can evil people do good things? Was he really good? Or evil?