The Pearl by Nobel Prize-winning author John Steinbeck begins with one of the most picturesque, idyllic scenes in literature: a pearl diver, Kino, awaking at dawn, gazing lovingly at his wife Juana and their baby son Coyotito, listening to the sounds of the sea. The reader can, then, perhaps catch a glimpse of the “music of the family”, a melody that flows through the harmonious landscape, a melody that constitutes Kino’s peaceful life before the pearl.
Everything begins when Kino and Juana see a scorpion crawl down into Coyotito’s hanging box. Desperate to save their baby by obtaining money to pay the doctor, Kino happens to find a great treasure in an oyster underwater. Kino then begins to hear the “music of the pearl”. Although alluring and happy at first, it is slowly merged with the “music of evil” as things start spiraling downward. Violence, hatred, and deceit enter his simple life, all rooted in greed. About halfway through the novella, it is already clear that Kino has lost more than what he can regain with the pearl. Yet what is it inside humans, represented by Kino, that spurs them to keep going, in pursuit of something luring and foreign that has cost them so much already?
The ability to be content, the ability to restrain oneself in the possibility of more wealth, is incredibly difficult to gain. It is in human nature to constantly seek more, a desire depicted beautifully through the story of Kino and his family. It was alarming to witness the speed at which the young man’s life fell apart, as he clung to the dreams that the pearl reflected for him, trying to convince himself that the pearl could help him gain back happiness.
Steinbeck’s writing had a way of drawing me into Kino’s life, thus inciting emotions such as terror and grief as that life was slowly and sweetly destroyed by the pearl. To make this effect even stronger, after you read the final page, go back and read the first page of the novel again. In terms of the scenery, it is really not different. But everything else has changed. Simply yet powerfully written, The Pearl is a novella deserving of all its accolades, full of symbolic and haunting warning against the darkness of human nature.
