Neelakantam 1
Tanish Neelakantam
Mrs.Disu
ENG3UV
July 15th, 2021
Narrative Voice
The Pearl is a novella written by John Steinbeck. The entirety of the story is written in
the third person omniscient point of view. This means that the narrator of the story can know all
the thoughts, feelings, and actions of all the characters, regardless of their importance to the
story. The narrator is also relatable to the reader, explaining ideas such as racism and
discrimination to help enforce the reader’s understanding of the society in the story. As well, the
discussion questions helped further deepen my understanding of aspects of the story. We can also
examine the author’s reasoning and choices with the way the novella is written.
As readers, the narrator can share all the thoughts, feelings, and actions of the characters
of mainly Kino and Juana. Since the story is written in the third person omniscient point of view,
the narrator does not appear to be in the story. Thus, lacking a sense of bias while narrating the
story. This allows the reader to trust the narrator to give an honest narration and recount the story
without missing any details. The narrator’s nonbias is shown in the text, “doctor never came to
the cluster of brush houses...he could do to take care of the rich people who lived in the stone and
plaster houses of the town”(Steinbeck ch.1). Even though the narrator spends most of the time
narrating about Kino and his people, the narrator shows no signs of pity from the discrimination
Kino faces. Thus enforcing my point of the narrator lacking bias.
This study source was downloaded by 100000849944545 from CourseHero.com on 07-21-2022 12:19:06 GMT -05:00
https://www.coursehero.com/file/101674622/Sythesis-Paper-Chapter-1-2pdf/
Neelakantam 2
In The Pearl, the narrator increases relatability to the reader by discussing socially
relevant topics such as racism and discrimination through interactions with characters. One such
example is with the doctor who says, “Have I nothing better to do than cure insect bites for 'little
Indians'? I am a doctor, not a veterinary."(Steinbeck ch.1). The readers can see how negative the
interactions are between Kino’s race and the townsfolk. The doctor expresses racism and social
injustice as he was quick to dehumanize Kino’s race. Racism and social injustice are issues that
have persisted for many years, which keeps the topic ever so relevant. Recent examples of
racism are the mistreatment of African Americans in America as well as the Asian hate crimes.
Connecting recent events and examples of prejudice allows the reader to form deeper
connections with the text and increases the narrator’s relatability.
The discussion questions helped further deepen my understanding of the novella. Posting
the questions and peers answering my questions allowed me to analyze characters and
understand their motives. With the narrator using the third person omniscient point of view it
allowed me to question characters such as the servant and better understand why he acts the way
he does. One of my peers answered saying that the servant disregarded his old culture in fears of
the doctor treating him the same as Kino. Which was similar to my thinking. I also think the
author created the servant to display how society worked and to show how different races
interacted with each other.
The use of the third person omniscient point of view signifies the author’s intent to
develop the novella without any limitations. The freedom that this point of view provides allows
This study source was downloaded by 100000849944545 from CourseHero.com on 07-21-2022 12:19:06 GMT -05:00
https://www.coursehero.com/file/101674622/Sythesis-Paper-Chapter-1-2pdf/
Neelakantam 3
the author to use the narrator to explore and examine parts of the world that may not be apparent
to the characters. The use of this point of view gives the author the ability through the narrator to
move between different characters and perspectives. Which creates a full picture of a situation
and allows the reader to better grasp each character. This idea was shown with the situation of
the scorpion. The reader can understand the fear Juana and Kino had but also understand
Coyotito wanted to play with the scorpion, oblivious to the threat posed to him.
The narrator using third person omniscient allows for a non-biased narration of the story
as well as being relatable by implementing relevant topics such as Racism. We can also
understand the reasoning of the author’s choice of using this point of view which allows the
reader to connect emotionally and better understand all aspects with the use of the third person
omniscient point of view.
This study source was downloaded by 100000849944545 from CourseHero.com on 07-21-2022 12:19:06 GMT -05:00
https://www.coursehero.com/file/101674622/Sythesis-Paper-Chapter-1-2pdf/
Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)