Examples Of Response To Literature

Kino’s desire to gain wealth changes the pearl’s natural beauty and good luck, turning it from a symbol of hope and happiness into a symbol of bad and

After finding the "Pearl of the World," Kino struggles to protect the pearl, himself, and

In the novel, the main character, Kino, goes out to find a pearl in hopes of getting money to pay the doctor to treat Coyotito, his son, who has been bitten by a scorpion. Kino discovers the biggest pearl anyone has ever seen, and believes the pearl will bring nothing but good for him and his family. The pearl does change the

The book starts off with Kino waking up next to his wife Juana. Kino looks at his baby Coyotito and notices a scorpion crawling down a rope into his cradle then crawls onto Coyotito. The song of danger is sung while Kino reaches his hand towards the scorpion to try to save Coyotito. The scorpion stings coyotito and Kino throws it off of coyotito and punches it into the ground. Kino takes the baby to the doctor but the doctor refuses to help Kino's family because they don't have money to pay the doctor to help Coyotito. Kino punches the gate and they go down to the beach. At the beach Kino takes his boat out to look for pearls while Juana wraps Coyotito's sting with seaweed. While Kino is diving for pearls he finds one the size of a seagull egg in a oyster. Kino rush Coyotito to the doctor again now that they have the money to pay the doctor to help him.. Then Juana takes the seaweed off of Coyotito's sting and everyone notices that the sting was getting better. So they leave the doctor and everyone in the village finds out about the pearl. People gather around Kino's house to look at the pearl. Then the doctor comes and tells Kino that Coyotito won't live unless he takes some medicine. While the doctor is there he finds out the hiding spot of the pearl. Later that night some people jumped Kino and tried to steal the pearl but fails and runaway. The next day they decide Kino and his family should sell the pearl. They go and try to sell the pearl but our given low prices to try to get the pearl for cheap. So Kino decides not to sell the pearl and headed back home. Later that night Juana tries to throw the pearl back into the ocean but Kino stops

At the beginning, the book made me sad because of the time of when this took place. It was very hard times for the people

The difference between Kino at the beginning of The Pearl and the ending is the amount of happiness Kino has. In The pearl on page 89 John Steinbeck states " And in the surface of the pearl he saw Coyotito lying in the little cave with the top of his head shot away." At the beginning of the story all Kino had was happiness because he would finally be able to give his son the life he deserved with the fortune that he would obtain from selling the pearl.

To wrap it all up, the type of Good and Evil presented in The Pearl, is not one positive one compared to other situations. Kino could have avoided many problems if it wasn’t for his ignorance. Instead of thinking of reality, he was focused on the future which caused him a big loss and

Kino no longer saw the pearl as “beautiful, rich and warm and lovely” (19), but rather “gray and ulcerous” (89). The melody that was “glowing and gloating and triumphant” (19) was now twisted, “distorted and insane” (89). Because of people imposing their selfish desires on the pearl, it was ugly to Kino. He, through the death of his son, understood that the people of his village had corrupted the pearl with what should have been a beautiful, elegant means for a better future. However, once Kino and Juana threw the pearl back into the gulf, it “settled into the lovely green water…the waving branches of the algae called to it and beckoned to it” (90). The pearl becomes destructive and dangerous when it is entangled with notions of material value. However, it is returned to its original beauty only after it is thrown into the gulf. Kino’s action of throwing it back into the ocean represents him finally rejecting the greed that consumed him.

Kino was attacked by mean trying to steal the pearl. He killed one of them in self-defense but Juana tells him that does not matter. He will still face consequences from the townspeople once the body is found in the morning.

However, Kino was enraged with anger at Juana for trying to throw away his pearl. The pearl had changed him for the worse, it had become part of him he loved the pearl. Kino would do anything to make sure that nothing would happen to it, even if it meant beating up his wife in order to save his pearl.

However, two vibrant changes occur as the story progresses —Coyotito, his son, getting stung by a scorpion and Kino’s discovery of the pearl—broaden Kino’s horizons and outlook on the world. As Kino begins to strive for wealth and education for his son, the simplicity of his life becomes increasingly complicated by greed, conflict, and violence. Kino’s character then falls through a gradual decline from a state of innocence to a state of corruption and disillusionment. The factors promoting this decline are ambition and greed. Thus, when going got tough for Kinoo and he had to escape town he faced a lot of hardships, since he had to go into hiding and the only immediate help he had was from his brother. This had an adverse effect on his personality as he became increasingly negative, given the way he hit his wife shows how the pearl preoccupied his mind to such a great extent that he grew indifferent to everything else as evil and restlessness eloped him. In addition to these social changes, Kinoo, after attaining the pearl was on the move to gain economic sustenance, but not being able to find the right price to sell his pearl got him feeling even more uncertain and disappointed but he continued to strive and was reluctant to give up because he wanted everything in his reach for his son, who he consequently ended up losing in the

Rachel Carson was a scientist and author who took a topic which had hitherto been only of interest to fellow scientists and opened it up to the masses. During her lifetime, she took up many causes in support of wildlife and the protection of species and protecting the natural landscape from potential molestation from developers and others who would destroy indigenous habitats. Among her many missions was to make people aware of the hazards of certain chemicals on the environment, such as pesticides on vegetation as examined in her most famous work Silent Spring.

The pearl's evil infects Kino like a ravaged disease and consumes his mind. He starts off with good intentions, but they become twisted. He wants to sell the pearl and use the money to better his family's lifestyle. He has dreams and goals that each depends on the pearl selling for a good price. Juana sensing the evil and greed coming from Kino attempts to destroy it. Kino beats her unmercifully. "He struck her in the face and she fell among the boulders, and he kicked her in the side...He hissed at her like a snake and she stared at him with wide unfrightened eyes, like a sheep before a butcher." Juana sees through the outer beauty of the pearl and knew it would destroy Kino and herself. Kino's vision from the soul becomes blurred by the possible prosperity the pearl will bring. The evil invades Kino's life as well as everyone he knows and loves.

After fighting battles with himself, Kino began to lose his ability to control himself because he was set on his plan for his family that he once saw in the pearl. “He struck her in the face with his clenched fist and she fell among the boulders and he kicked her in the side.” (Steinbeck 59). Multiple instances have occured since Kino first got the pearl, including two attacks to steal it during the night, as well as thousands of eyes that have stared through him and looked into his soul full of secrets, making him feel scared throughout the day and night, worried that those eyes would turn into attacks on his pearl, which holds the future for his family. After Juana, Kino’s wife had enough jealous stares and greedy attacks, she took the pearl and boldly planned to throw it into the water, for it to drown with the wealth and the struggles attached to it. But, as Kino was constantly aware of everything occurring with the pearl, he didn't care whether it was his wife or a stranger, because he knew he had to attack and prevent the loss of the pearl, especially since he has such a close connection to it. “The pearl has become my soul. If I give it up, I shall lose my soul.” (Steinbeck 67). Kino cannot live without the pearl and as everyday goes by, his connection with the pearl grows stronger, and his

Reader-response theory identifies the reader as an affective agent who imparts real exist-ence and life to the work, completing its meaning through interpretation. Reader- response criti-cism argues that literature should be viewed as art in which each reader creates his or her own-most likely unique, text-related performance. I am using Wolfgang Iser and Stanley Fish’s takes on Reader Response for my study.