My love for John Steinbeck deepens further after reading The Pearl (1947). Based on a Mexican folk tale, we meet a young couple who live in hut with their infant son. The man, Kino, is a pearl diver, and very poor. When the story opens, the young family lives a very content life, but that is all about to change. One morning, the baby Coyotito is stung by a scorpion and needs medical treatment. However, the doctor doesn’t want to help a poor man since there’s nothing in it for him. It’s the beginning of desperate times.
Shortly thereafter, Kino finds an enormous pearl that is nicknamed “the Pearl of the World”, and no one has ever seen anything like it. Kino first believes that his luck has turned in his favor, but only the first night, people try to steal it from him. The next day, he is further disappointed when the corrupt pearl buyers try to play him and rob him of what the pearl is really worth by saying it has no value.
Instead, Kino decides to take the pearl the long way to the capital to sell it, but his wife Juana sees the evil it has brought and sneaks out at night to throw it back in the ocean. But Kino figures it out, attacks her and then gets attacked himself. Eventually they begin the dangerous journey and are chased by trackers.
The story, although quite short, shows how greed can lead to the downfall of man. Steinbeck paints a beautifully painful story with an end that leaves you heartbroken. It also offers a lot to discuss and even now, weeks after i finished it, I still hate the people who let their own greed cause so much pain in a young family who really didn’t care about money but that which is important – the people you hold near and dear.
classicbookchallenge 