Just In Times

The Pearl, written by John Steinbeck, tells the story of a pearl diver from a small town in Mexico who experienced both great fortune and great tragedy.  When Kino was out diving he came across the mother of all pearls.  This was a change of luck for Kino; it allowed him to be able to give his child an education and his family a house.  Throughout the book the pearl represents the desires of Kino.  These desires made Kino greedy and paranoid.  During the book the underlying theme is that something beautiful can be poisoned by greed and ambition.  Steinbeck showed the reader Kino’s ambition when Kino discovered the pearl.  Kino saw his life change through the pearl; it offered him the opportunity to get married, buy a new house, and send his son to school.  This ambition blinded Kino, causing him to make irrational decisions towards his family and friends.  When Kino attempted to sell the pearl, he boldly declined the offers of all the bidders, who he thought were trying to cheat him.  Kino was correct that they were trying to cheat him, but this only led to Kino becoming even more paranoid.  Through the pearl his great fortune was turned into great tragedy.

Another example of Kino’s ambition can be seen when he killed someone in order to protect his pearl.  This forced him to have to escape his village.  Throughout Kino’s endeavors, his wife was trying to convince him to throw the pearl back, because it had brought nothing but bad luck.  However, Kino insisted that they must surmount their troubles because they would be greatly rewarded when he sold the pearl.  Kino’s wife obliges.  Their troubles continued to mount when they discovered that trackers were sent after them.  Kino’s ambition gets the best of him when he decides he has to kill them too.  When he manages to kill the trackers, he soon finds out that a stray bullet connected with his son, killing him.  The child was his primary motivation for wanting a better life. This shows again how beauty is destroyed by ambition and greed. 

Greed is a recurring feature of characters in the book.  The first example is when the doctor refused to operate on Kino’s baby because Kino had no money.  The doctor’s selfishness makes him immediately unlikeable. The greedy merchants who try to take advantage of Kino by offering far less than the pearl is worth are also immediately unlikeable. In contrast, Kino is very likeable at the beginning of the book and when he first becomes a little greedy after finding the pearl the reader overlooks it. It is not until Kino shows that he is willing to kill people to protect the pearl that his character becomes less sympathetic. Once he realizes greed has destroyed his life, Kino throws the pearl back into the ocean.   

Although Kino was originally a well-liked and humble man with a good family, greed and ambition destroyed his personality and ruined his family.  Kino’s wife tried to warn him that the pearl would destroy them. He didn’t realize how right she was until it was too late and his son was dead. Through the pearl, many lives where changed. In conclusion, The Pearl shows how greed and ambition can poison something beautiful and make it ugly and distorted.