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1. Quote: Nature Keeping Humanity in Balanc?

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1. Quote: Nature Keeping Humanity in Balanc?

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"... an increasingly hostile nature in “The Pearl” rises in anger to prevent a natural man from becoming unnatural. For when Kino flees into the mountains with his pearl, nature assumes an austere and frightening pose..." (Astro).

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"Kino’s decision comes, of course, when he realizes the destructive nature of material wealth, since in order to keep his pearl he must be willing to exploit his own people, the Indians of the Gulf. So Kino rejects his newly-acquired fortune, but not until an avaricious society has burned his house and killed his baby" (Astro).

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3.Quote: Nature Will Always Dominate Man

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3.Quote: Nature Will Always Dominate Man

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"...Steinbeck seems to use nature as a tool with which to mock and frustrate the unnatural man and hopefully drive him to penitence" (Astro).

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"...“The Pearl” are Steinbeck’s last works containing his traditional view of nature and the natural world, and they are the last of his writings in which nature assumes an active role in directing the course of human existence...while none of the three books are, properly speaking, great works of fiction, they are among the most representative examples of Steinbeck’s enduring and deep-rooted love of nature and his unique affection for the natural man" (Astro).

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Perkins shared the thought of Orville Prescott who believed that "The Pearl" was depressing and only the people with the same views would be able to relate (Perkins).

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6. Paraphrase: Poor Situation of the Main Character

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6. Paraphrase: Poor Situation of the Main Character

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Perkins writes that Kino and his family have been "denied basic human rights." They have no means of escape from this style of life because even education is off-limits (Perkins).

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Perkins reveals the nature of man to dominate one another. When Kino's child was bitten by a scorpion, the doctor simply didn't care. He saw Kino and his race as inferior and insignificant to his race (Perkins).

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When Kino finds the great pearl, the greedy doctor insists that Kino's child will not survive from the scorpion bite without the doctor's help. Not knowing what to do, one of Kino's dream is for his child to receive an education to escape the "oppression" Kino and his race faces (Perkins).

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9. Quote: What Happens When Hope is Crushed

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9. Quote: What Happens When Hope is Crushed

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"Steinbeck illustrates the tragic consequences of the loss of that freedom of the spirit in The Pearl, expressing a profound sympathy for the individual and the community that suffers under such an oppressive system" (Perkins)

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Perkins points out that Kino holds to the hope of being able to provide an education to his child because, "these things will make us free because he will know--he will know and through him we will know" (Perkins).

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Steinbeck's friendship with Ricketts greatly influenced Steinbeck, "I grew to depend on his knowledge and on his patience in research" (Shillinglaw).

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9. Quote: Forming the Style of Writing of Steinbeck

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9. Quote: Forming the Style of Writing of Steinbeck

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"But it took him the early years of the decade to test his stride, to polish his style, and to chart his fictional terrain" (Shillinglaw).

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Steinbeck did not really make friends with the rich and powerful but rather held "empathy" for those who struggled: the laborers, the poor, etc...(Shillinglaw).

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When you get to know the "man" around you more, the more likely you'll understand and grow to love "man." Understanding "man"
avoid hate (Shillinglaw).

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Steinbeck never cared to boast "power and wealth." He preferred being friends with average people (Shillinglaw).

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5. Quote: Writing is Steinbeck's First Love and Passion

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5. Quote: Writing is Steinbeck's First Love and Passion

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"The president of the English Club said that Steinbeck, who regularly attended meetings to read his stories aloud, 'had no other interests or talents that I could make out. He was a writer, but he was that and nothing else'” (Shillinglaw).

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"To please his parents, he enrolled at Stanford University in 1919; to please himself, he signed on only for courses that interested him: classical and British literature, creative writing, a smattering of science" (Shillinglaw).

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3. Paraphrase: Meeting the People Around Him

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3. Paraphrase: Meeting the People Around Him

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In the duration of Steinbeck's attendance at Stanford University, he worked a plethora of jobs including, "...rancher, road worker, hod carrier, deck hand, cotton picker..." where the people he met would eventually become inspirations for the characters he writes in his books (Gray).

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2. Quote: Support from Steinbeck's Parents

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2. Quote: Support from Steinbeck's Parents

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Although it wasn't a desirable profession at the time, Steinbeck's parents helped as they could, "The father, always unobtrusively sympathetic to the younger Steinbeck’s desire to become a writer, once paid, out of a small salary as an official of city government, a minute allowance which kept him in the bare necessities of life while he worked at his manuscripts. The mother as a girl had been a schoolteacher ...preferred to see him established in a profession of acknowledged prestige, she set him on the long search for enlightenment through books" (Gray).

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In Salinas, California, John Steinbeck was born in 1902. His family was of the middle class and he attended but did not graduate Stanford University ("John Steinbeck - Biographical").

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"'This pearl is my soul,' said Kino. 'If I give it up I shall lose my soul,'" (Steinbeck 65).

Is this pearl really worth it to put even his soul at a lesser value.

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"Suddenly Kino was afraid. The light made him afraid. He remembered the man lying dead in the brush beside the path...into the shadow of a house away from the light, for light was danger to him," (Steinbeck 62).

The light reveals the secrets people hide and keep in the dark. In this case, Kino kills a man out of self-defense but feels guilt and fears condemnation.

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"He struck her in the face with his clenched fist  and she fell among the boulders, and he kicked her in the side," (Steinbeck 57).

Kino is known as a kind, humble man but in this event he strikes his wife for trying to throw back the pearl into the sea. Has the pearl corrupted Kino?

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"'Kino, this pearl is evil. Let us destroy it before it destroys us. Let us crush it between two stones. Let us --let us throw it back in the sea where it belongs. Kino, it is evil, it is evil!'" (Steinbeck 55).

The pearl was supposed to give Kino and his family a fresh start and a better life but so far all it has given the family are enemies and hardships.

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"Juana watched him with worry, but she knew him and she knew she could help him best by being silent and by being near," (Steinbeck 53).

Like the stereotypical role of women, Juana supports her husband quietly and from the back. She plays the role of obedient wife and good mother.

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"But Kino had grown tight and hard. He felt the creeping of fate, the circling of wolves, the hover of vultures. He felt the evil coagulating about him, and he was helpless to protect himself. He heard in his ears the evil music. And on the black velvet the great pearl glistened, so that the dealer could not keep his eyes from it," (Steinbeck 49).

Before finding the pearl, Kino was just surrounded with people like him--his family. Now he is surrounded by enemies who are greedy and lusting for the pearl.

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"His face was fatherly and benign, and his eyes twinkled with friendship," (Steinbeck 46).

"But the buyer's eyes had become as steady and cruel and unwinking as a hawk's eyes, while the rest of his face smiled in greeting," (Steinbeck 47).

Steinbeck is describing the same person, a pearl buyer. At first he is described in a nice way, then in a more sadistic way. I believe Steinbeck is showing the two nature's of human beings

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"...they put their pearls in the desks, for it is not good to let an inferior pearl be seen beside a beauty," (Steinbeck 46).

The pearl buyers are making sure Kino's pearl doesn't stand out even more than it does so they can cheat him out.

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"It was supposed that the pearl buyers were individuals acting alone, bidding against one another for the pearls the fisherman brought in. And once it had been so. But this was a wasteful method, for often, in the excitement of bidding for a fine pearl, too great, a price had been paid to the fishermen. Now there was only one pearl buyer with many hands," (Steinbeck 41).

"...the best and happier pearl buyer was he who bought for the lowest prices," (Steinbeck 41).

They are cheating the fishermen trying to pay way under the pearl's value because it would mean the pearl "buyers" would keep more money.

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"'It will destroy us all,' Juana cried. 'Even our son.'"

Juana  is actually standing up for herself and fears for her family for the pearl has given her nothing but trouble.

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"...the great pearl, perfect as the moon. It captured the light and refined it and gave it back in silver incandescence. It was as large as sea-gull's egg. It was the greatest pearl in the world," (Steinbeck 20).

This pearl Kino has found is described as beautiful and magnificent but could looks be deceiving? Could a pearl that great ever belong to a human being?

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"All of the neighbors hoped that sudden wealth would not turn Kino's head, would not make a rich man of him, would not graft onto him the evil limbs of greed and hatred and coldness. For Kino was a well-liked man; it would be a shame if the pearl destroyed him. 'That good wife Juana,' they said, 'and the peaceful baby Coyotito, and the others to come. What a pity it would be if the pearl should destroy them all,'" (Steinbeck 42).

Wealth can turn a person from good to bad. A person can have good intention when first acquiring wealth but can be corrupted afterwards. Kino's neighbors are hoping he stays humble and good because they like him. Kino's first intention of finding the pearl was to save his baby after Coyotito was stung by a scorpion.

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"Now, Kino's people had sung everything that happened or existed. They made songs to the fishes, to the sea in anger and to the sea in calm, to the light and dark and the sun and the moon, and the songs were all in Kino and in his people--every song that had ever been made, even the ones forgotten," (Steinbeck 18).

Songs seems to be very much in Kino's everyday life. There's the Song of the Family, Song of the Evil, Song of the Pearl that Might Be, and the Song of the Undersea to name a few.

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"Juana sensed his excitement, ad she pretended to look away. It is not good to want a thing too much. It drives the luck away," (Steinbeck 19).

"Juana cast her eyelashes down and arranged her shawl to cover her face so that her excitement could not be seen," (Steinbeck 24).

Juana, wife of Kino, does not show her emotions because of superstitions. She is fearful of wanting and showing her want and then seeing it go away.

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"Kino's pearl went into the dreams, the speculations, the schemes, the plans, the futures, the wishes, the needs, the lusts, the hungers, of everyone, and only one person stood in the way and that was Kino, so that he became curiously every man's enemy," (Steinbeck 23).

Humans are the ones who placed value in materialistic objects. The greediness of men makes us turn against our friends.