Duncan S. Jackson
English 1105
Charles Ellis
Independent Study
Analysis of “The Pearl”
John Steinbeck, through his novella “The Pearl,” takes his reader(s) on a multi-themed
journey that reminds us to be careful for that which we wish much the way W. W. Jacobs was
able to drive home the same point in his short story “The Monkey’s Paw.” Unlike Jacobs’ classic
fable, however, the total plausibility Steinbeck invokes serves to lend credence and believability
to the characters and the roles under which they serve.
Set in 1930s La Paz, Mexico, it is immediately clear that the first theme this story
employs is that of class, of poverty versus wealth. The brush houses—homes constructed of
bushes, limbs, grass, leaves, and having thatched roofs—are a testament to the poverty-level
conditions in which the destitute pearl divers of the town live; this is contrasted by “the city of
stone and plaster” (13), as well as “the smell […] of good bacon from the doctor’s house” (15),
and even in the doctor’s relegating those he views as beneath him as nothing more than animals
as he says to the air about himself, “I am a doctor, not a veterinary” (18). It is not until Kino
finds the pearl that he is looked upon differently by those whose scorn he so easily fell under, be
it the priest, the doctor, the shopkeepers, the pearl buyers, or Kino’s very own neighbors.
The second theme made manifest is the classic good versus evil, and this is seen most
profoundly with the pearl itself, which is immediately reminiscent of Tolkien’s “precious.” The
pearl in and of itself is a good thing, for it will provide for Kino, his wife Juana, and their son
Coyotito the opportunity to forge a better future. Kino understands the importance the “Pearl of
the World” (32) holds, and perhaps this is best exemplified by one of the first things he states he
will buy after selling the pearl, “—a rifle—but why not, since he was so rich” (37)? It would
definitely bespeak his new-found station in life, but it would also protect against the “colonial
animal” (32) with the “poison sacs of […] manufacture[d] venom” (35) that the town had not
necessarily become, but had always bided its time in revealing itself to be.
Though at times naïve, and others ignorant, these two factors affirmed Juana’s belief in
superstition, and after her begging Kino to “crush it between two stones” (77) had fallen on deaf
ears, she had attempted to return the pearl to the sea herself (79) due to the evil she felt resided in
it, for had Kino not already been accosted twice, his house burned to the ground, and his boat
destroyed? Prior to the discovery of the pearl it was she who prayed not for the healing of
Coyotito, who had been stung by a scorpion, but for a pearl with which to seek proper medical
attention for her son. Kino’s brother—and La Paz’s village elder—Juan Tomas stated, “There is
a devil in this pearl [and] you should have gotten rid of it” (89), yet Kino was “half insane and
half god” (83), and all that would slake his thirst for the justice of a proper price could be found
in “that monster of strangeness they called the capital” (73), for “he had already lost his old
world and must clamber on to a new one” (73) when he upset the status quo by refusing to deal
with the buyers, and in some way this was expedited when an unknown sent assassins to dispatch
of Kino and procure the pearl.
The story’s third theme, becoming more than one is told he or she should be—not
accepting one’s lot in life—begins when Kino “felt the evil coagulating about him [and] heard in
his ears the evil music” (69) as the pearl buyers attempted to swindle him, and it is these things
that set him upon the path of discovering the pearl’s terrible value. Juan Tomas explains that,
“You have defied not the pearl buyers, but the whole structure, the whole way of life, and I am
afraid for you” (74). The pearl buyers worked in collusion to keep the villagers subjugated, but
Kino’s resolute determination to travel to the capital city to fetch a fair price for the pearl drove
out any rational thought offered as to it being a thing of evil.
Call it happenstance, irony, or a twist of fate, but the ending Mr. Steinbeck chose for his
intrepid hero brings this paper full circle as once again a parallel is drawn between “The Pearl”
and “The Monkey’s Paw.” To protect his family from the assassins, one of whom brandishes the
same Winchester rifle Kino had earlier entertained thoughts of owning, he is forced to kill or be
killed. He easily dispatches the rifleman—not before a shot is fired—then terminates the other
two, and he finds the “cry of death” (119) comes not from the palpable silence left in the wake of
his own bloody massacre of the would-be assassins, but from his wife Juana, who laments the
loss of their son; it was the initial rifle shot that had killed Coyotito.
Kino and Juana return to La Paz village, “and they were not walking in single file” (119),
but side by side as opposed to the custom of the woman following in her husband’s wake. This
signifies the equality of loss suffered by both, and perhaps the equality of blame and guilt both
assume for Coyotito’s death. Equal also are the rifle, which hangs over Kino’s right shoulder,
and the lifeless body of Coyotito, hanging over Juana’s left. In claiming the prized weapon Kino
found he had given up that which was more precious to him than the money a thousand pearls
could hope to ever bring.
Upon first taking in the depth and beauty of the pearl, “It captured the light and refined it
and gave it back in silver incandescence. It was as large as a sea-gull’s egg” (30), but at the end
of his journey Kino looks at it one last time, “And the pearl was ugly; it was gray, like a
malignant growth.” Kino offers the pearl to Juana, to do with as she had wished the night before,
but she—perhaps fueled yet again by superstition—allows he who dragged this monstrosity from
the depths to return it from whence it came, and perhaps finally understanding the evil this freak
of nature holds—or more conceivably, exercising their own naivety, ignorance, and superstition
—none of the villagers seek to claim it as their own.
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