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John Steinbeck. the Pearl. Fragment Analisys

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Group 4B
The text analysis “The Pearl” by John Steinbeck.

The present extract is from the novel “The Pearl” written by American author John Steinbeck. The novel is about Kino, who is a pearl diver and main theme is man`s nature, both evil and good, greed and honest. The extract refers to the part of the novel, when Kino discovers an enormous pearl or “the Pearl of the World”.
The register of the text is fictional narrative, and type of narration is heterodiegetic, because the narrator situated outside the level of action. The text is with omniscient point of view, or zero focalization – the narrator knows more than characters. The authorial narrative allows the narrator to have an insight into the thoughts and feelings …show more content…

Mostly, the narrator use verbs of motion to emphasize on how quick and fast the news are, and how they spread over the town and how they reached the citizens.
The word “pearl” obviously is a key word in the extract, it is repeated several time, but it is interesting the way the narrator uses capitalization and small letter for this word. When the narrator speaks about Kino and the pearl, he use the capital letter: Kino had found the Pearl of the World. With capitalization, he wants to emphasize the importance of this pearl to Kino, because he treats it like something alive and extremely beautiful, but already in the end there is sentence: Kino held the great pearl in his hand, and it was warm and alive in his hand. No capitalization used in this sentence, may be because exactly in this sentence, the narrator reveals, that according to Kino the pearl is great, warm and alive, so no other emphasize needed. Small letter used for the word “pearl” when speaking about the other characters, like priest: He wondered what the pearl would be worth. Two men, buyers: In the town, in little offices, sat the men who bought pearls from the fishers. And all other men: Every man suddenly became related to Kino`s pearl. Evidently, for all of them the pearl is just a product for sale, investment, so there is no use to emphasize on its beauty. To show the reader how different Kino and citizens treats the pearl, the narrator uses different semantic fields.

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