The Pearl

The Pearl
1st edition
Author	John Steinbeck
Original title	The Pearl
Illustrator	José Clemente Orozco
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	novella
Publisher	The Viking Press & William Heinemann
Publication date	1947
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages	90 pp
ISBN	0-14-017737-X
OCLC Number	27697348

First edition titlepage

The Pearl is a novella by American author John Steinbeck. It takes place in the 1900's. Like his father and grandfather before him, Kino is a poor pearl diver, gathering pearls from the Gulf beds that once brought great wealth to Mexico's Spanish Conquistadors. Pearl diving now provides Kino, Juana, and their infant son Coyotito, with the meager subsistence that they need to live. Unexpectedly, Coyotito gets stung by a scorpion. Kino can't pay for a doctor to heal Coyotito, so he searches for a pearl. After searching for one, Kino emerges from the sea with a pearl as large as a seagull's egg, and as "perfect as the moon." The pearl brings hope, the promise of comfort, but at the cost of stepping out of an established system. It is a story about a Mexican folk tale, The Pearl explores the secrets of man's nature, the darkest depths of evil, and the disastrous effects of stepping out of an established system. Due to the novella's negative portrayal of opportunity and ambition, some suspect that, like much of Steinbeck's work, it advocates socialism. In fact, its criticism of the ruling elites and their dominance in Mexican society along with their clearly negative attitude toward the poor are much stronger arguments for the "socialism" that Steinbeck purportedly advocates.

The Pearl has a strong moral that one should be content with one's life and that greed invites misfortune, which is what Kino and his family end up having plenty of after the discovery of the pearl later in the book. The novella presents this view through the character of the Priest, who participates in continuing the oppression of the indigenous people (Kino's race). In the end, Kino looks at the pearl and sees it as something evil. The pearl has changed throughout the story from a sign of hope, to a sign of greed, death, and deceit. He sees the man that he had killed reflected on the surface of the pearl, as well as a vision of his baby Coyotito after he had been mistakenly shot. In his rage, Kino flings the pearl back into the sea, where it settles into the sand and disappears before the dust can settle. The book also conveys messages of oppression and racism in a way that suggests they are negative elements in life.^[1]

References in other media

• The 1946 film La perla, set in New Mexico and closely following Steinbeck storyline, was adapted by Emilio Fernández, John Steinbeck and Jack Wagner from the novella and stars Pedro Armendáriz and María Elena Marqués. It was directed by Fernández And Steinbeck.

• The 2001 film The Pearl (filmed in La Paz, Baja California Sur, Mexico) has a screenplay by director Alfredo Zacarias based on John Steinbeck's novella. It stars Lukas Haas and Tere López-Tarín, with Richard Harris as Dr. Karl. ^[2]

• The musical duo Fleming and John recorded a song called "The Pearl" which is based on the novella. It appears on their 1999 album The Way We Are.

• The Australian film The Nugget is said to have been inspired by The Pearl^{[citation needed]}.

• In the show One Tree Hill, a quote^{[citation needed]} is used from the book as a voice over.

References

External links

• About.com Book Review
• Photos of the first edition of The Pearl
• The Pearl study guide and teaching guide - analysis, themes, quotes, multimedia for students and teachers

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