The Pearl

John Steinbeck's story, “The Pearl” provides an insight into the destructive nature of greed. Kino, the main character, lives with his wife Juana and small baby boy, Coyotito. In the story the pearl, Coyotito is bitten by a scorpion and desperately needs medical care. However, the town’s doctor refuses to treat Coyotito because he is racist and refuses to heal him because of his skin color. Luckily, Kino makes a brilliant discovery, discovering a unique pearl known as "The Pearl of the World." Now, the doctor tries to get the pearl from Kino, so he hires a man to go out and kill Kino. The man who had attacked Kino was unsuccessful. Kino had stabbed him with a knife. Kino was a very greedy person and cared only about this pearl.

Kino’s obsession with the pearl was just absurd. He was so greedy and could care less about what would happen to Coyotito and Juana. Kino and Juana had been forced to leave the town with Coyotito because it was no longer safe for them to remain there. Too many people had found out about the pearl and would do anything to get there greedy hands on it. However, as his wife Juana repeatedly suggests, the great pearl could lead to misfortune rather than happiness. Juana tries to throw the pearl out so that their family would no longer be in a crisis. Kino sees her and finds her and decides to resort to violence and hit her and bruise her badly for trying to throw out his pearl which he thinks is a “gift from god.”

This is an example of Kino caring more about the pearl than his family and him being very greedy. His son Coyotito was shot and injured very badly. Only after his son dies does Kino comes to a point when he finally realizes this pearl is not worth tearing their family apart. They have already lost Coyotito and don’t want anything along this line to happen to them so finally he gets with reality and tossed “the pearl of the world” back into the sea. He returns home with his wife Juana after they had tossed the pearl into the sea. This is an example of him finally grasping to reality and starts to realize the pearl had caused the death of his first born. This made him not be greedy anymore and to get rid of this devil pearl.

I thought this story was very well written. I believe the purpose of the story “The Pearl” was to show us that you don’t have to have more valuables than what you need. You can’t have what you want all the time so be grateful for what you have. Kino became very greedy and caused it to where his child Coyotito dies. This peal had a devil in it and caused him to beat up his wife Juana. Kino dug himself into a deep hole because he wouldn’t just get rid of this pearl. He was much too greedy and cared more about it than his own family!