The Pearl by John Steinbeck

The Pearl

John Steinbeck

Published 1947

⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Pearl is a broken story: a struggle between good and evil, and evil wins. It is a short story, though it moves briskly, while providing a variety of difficult themes to sift through. This was my third reading. 

Following are spoilers:

Kino, his wife Juana, and their baby Coyotito lived in a brush hut in a poor village on the beach in Mexico.  Life was simple, and the music of the family in Kino's head sounded like peace and contentedness. All was well until baby Coyotito was stung by a scorpion. His shoulder began to swell where the poison was injected.

The desperate young parents humbly took Coyotito to the rich European doctor in town, but he refused to treat poor natives who could not pay for treatment; hence, they returned to their village, possibly accepting the fate of what the poison would do or hopeful that they may find a way to pay.

Kino supported his family with use of his canoe. After they returned to the beach, Kino and Juana went out on the canoe, and Kino dove for a few oysters.

Kino found the pearl of the world. 

When the baby was stung, Juana, with motherly instinct, had sucked out much of the poison and applied a poultice to the infected area. By the time Kino had found the life-changing pearl, the swelling on Coyotito's shoulder had already subsided. 

Word spread rapidly about the pearl, even into town, and immediately the doctor visited the family. Confident of their ignorance, he made the baby sicker by administering a medicine, claiming the baby's illness would relapse from the scorpion poison. 

But the doctor's true intent was to cause the young parents to feel beholden to him as the only means to save Coyotito; and the doctor expected they would pay him for saving their baby. When the doctor returned to "save" Coyotito, he pretended he had not heard about the pearl. Kino promised to pay him once he sold the pearl to the dealers. 

That evening, someone entered their hut and tried to steal the pearl. Kino wrestled with him, and may have cut him with his knife; but the individual escaped. 

The next morning, the pearl dealers in town treated Kino no better than the doctor had. They pretended not to be interested in the pearl and would only be able to give him a very small amount. Kino knew he was being taken advantage, and he returned to his village, determined to go to the city where he was confident he could sell his pearl to a more fair and honest dealer. 

The pearl meant a life change for Kino and his family. He envisioned his son learning to read and going to school; he promised Juana they would have a real wedding in the church; and he planned to buy fine clothes for his family. He intended the best life for the future.

Juana was already sensitive to the dangers and uselessness of even trying to escape the life they lived presently. But Kino was set to take his family to the city to sell the pearl early in the morning. Then once again, he was attacked in his home by another stranger seeking to find the pearl. Juana dressed his wounds and they tried to rest for the night.

But Juana rose early before Kino, stealthily retrieved the pearl from its hiding place, and headed to the beach to return it to the sea. Kino woke and pursued her. In a rage, he hit and kicked her and snatched the pearl from her grasp. On his return to the hut, he was attacked by several men, one of whom he killed in self defense. In the attack, he lost hold of the pearl, and that was all he cared about. 

Juana sadly recovered the pearl; Kino told her to go get the baby: they would leave by way of his canoe. She submitted, but on her way back, Juana saw the hut on fire. She rescued Coyotito in time. Meanwhile, Kino found his canoe destroyed. Though the waking villagers believed the family had perished in the fire, Kino and his family found cover in the nearby home of Kino's brother. Now they must escape for good; their lives were in danger, and Kino had killed a man.

By the time Kino and Juana made it to the mountains, they realized they were trapped. They were being pursued by trappers. Kino believed the only way to escape was to kill the men; but when Coyotito cried out, one the trappers fired at what he thought was a wild animal. Kino snuck up on the trappers and killed them; but it did not matter anymore. Coyotito was already dead. 

The next morning, Kino and Juana dejectedly returned to the village, where the music of the family once played joyfully in their heads. The villagers stared silently as they walked down to the beach, and Kino took the pearl and threw it back into the water. 

Some themes:

Steinbeck likes to employ heavy themes in his stories and magnify them or exasperate them in order to make his point. He paints extremely ugly people in wickedly arrogant and unjust positions, especially religious people, or innocent and naively simpleminded poor people in highly vulnerable situations. Everyone in The Pearl is very black or white. He (or she) is either a wealthy, greedy elitist or a poor and ignorant native. 

Naturally, the economic classes are set against each other. The wealthy live in town decorated with colorful stone buildings, while the poor live on the beach in brush huts. They live hand to mouth. The conniving elites are liars and thieves and mistreat the poor like unimportant, useless animals. Steinbeck uses many situations to show the animalistic treatment of the natives. In addition, the desire for something better changes Kino, and he becomes more animal like. 

Wanting to improve one's lot in life, in this story anyway, is portrayed as impossible. Poor Kino imagined a better life after he found the greatest pearl. He rightfully earned the opportunity to sell it for a high price. But the severe greed of the trickster pearl dealers and the greed of the cruel doctor created barriers, preventing Kino from escaping his lot or caused a dangerous scenario for him and his family.

There is no justice in Steinbeck's stories; maybe that is how he saw the world. Everything that happened to Kino and Juana was outrageously unjust. It was right for them to desire to have a stone house or clothes, or for their son to attend school. They should not have had to run for their lives to achieve it. 

However, the poor in this story were also happy or content - when not given a chance for something else. Yet, the rich were miserable, such as the doctor who would rather return to Paris. Was Steinbeck trying to tell us something about the lifestyle of the upperclass? Possibly. But probably he was magnifying inequality.

There are many more ideas and themes to pursue in this novella, like the sacredness of family, relationships between men and women, and more. It is a tragedy, obviously, but of Steinbeck's works, it is one that I find worthwhile as an important piece of literature.