What Does Kino Symbolize In The Pearl By John Steinbeck

According to Mexican folklore, there was a pearl driver who ends up finding a pearl known as “The Pearl of the World” John Steinbeck knew of this tale and wrote a story called the pearl. The Pearl can teach the reader many important lessons through the events of this story and it's many themes that are portrayed through the use of figurative language. An example of this is how Steinbeck uses the symbols of the pearl ,light and darkness to show that greed and wealth corrupts one character.

The Pearl, a book written by John Steinbeck, teaches a lesson about how a person can be swayed by greed. In the story, John Steinbeck uses three literary devices to help the reader understand the story better. Through foreshadowing, John Steinbeck explains how others are swayed by greed. For example, Kino himself, the villagers, and the pearl buyers are mesmerized by the pearl. Lastly, symbolism is used in the story, such as the pearl being evil luck. The author shows how Kino is overcome with greed, using characterization. Through characterization, foreshadowing, and symbolism, John Steinbeck explains how people can be affected by greed.

Of all the symbols that are in Steinbeck’s story, the pearl of the world is the most important because of its direct impact on Kino, Juana, and Coyotito. The Pearl is about a poor diver, Kino, who gathers pearls for a living. Then, on a day like any other, Kino comes to the surface of the sea with a pearl as large as a seagull’s egg. Kino thought it would be a source of wealth, hope, and comfort, whereas it was actually the evil that destroyed their family.

In this novella, I developed a thesis statement, which is: The pearl kept Kino moving forward because it represented hope during a period in his life. I chose this thesis statement because one of the aspects that makes this story move forward is Kino’s hope and greed; even if this greed is based on his hope. Steinbeck quotes: “Every man suddenly became related to Kino’s pearl, the schemes, the plans, the futures, the wishes, the needs, the lusts, the hungers of everyone, and only one person stood in the way and that was Kino, so he became curiously everyman’s enemy” (Steinbeck, 27).

Kino is one of the main characters in John Steinbeck’s book, The Pearl. At first, Kino was very simple, and he only cared about the village and the people in it, especially his family. After Kino discovers the pearl, Kino transformed himself from a hardworking family man to a violent murderer driven by greed.

The Pearl written by John Steinbeck is a parable, a story that teaches a moral lesson. The focus of this novel is on a poor Indian family. The family consists of three members: Kino, a husband, father, and fisherman, Juana, his wife and loving mother; and Coyotito their infant son. This indigent family lives in a small brush hut along the Gulf of Mexico by the town of La Paz. One day Coyotito, is bitten by a scorpion; a scorpion sting can be deadly to a baby. Kino and Juana are very worried over the health of their baby; therefore, they hope to find a pearl worthy enough for the doctor’s payment to the doctor to treat Coyotito. With luck on their side, Kino finds a pearl the size of a seagull’s egg; he calls it “The Pearl of the

The Pearl By John Steinbeck is a story of a family their names are kino, Juana, and coyotito. Until something happened to them in their life, everything changed after what they found. Kino’s life was chaotic after he found the”pearl of the world” but he learned a lesson at the end.

The pearl in general, meant opportunity and hope. Opportunity because it could have helped anyone who was poor be able to reach a higher level that they weren’t able to get without the pearl. An example of getting to a better place would be by getting a rifle,

"And, as with all retold tales that are in people's hearts, there are only good and bad things and black and white things and good and evil things and no in-between. If this story is a parable, perhaps everyone takes his own meaning from it and reads his own life into it.” The Pearl is a novel written by John Steinbeck. Steinbeck is known as one of America’s greatest authors. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature because of his realistic and imaginative writing. Steinbeck had traveled to Mexico, where he took a marine biology course, there he met a group of Indians, who told him the story of the “pearl of great price.” In the Pearl, Steinbeck develops the theme of how evil can bring man’s owns destruction; and can bring out the

In the novella The Pearl by John Steinbeck, the pearl causes unforeseen misery and greed despite its beauty and promise of riches. The book tells the tale of a poor pearl diver and his family. The pearl diver, known as Kino finds “the pearl of the world” and just like that, greed begins to destroy him and his family. The town becomes stricken with greed over Kino’s newfound riches. The pearl pushes both Kino and the townspeople to destroy and ultimately kill over the pearl.

     Lastly, the Pearl of the World is hard to grasp for because it is significantly realistic to be true, yet it is as far idealistic as possible. Everyone wanted the same thing, but they knew they all would not be able to have it. The material pearl reveals the irony of good fortune in that what should have been the profession of a lifetime, turns out to be a disaster, producing a great

The pearl’s meaning to different members of the community is evil, jealousy, and freedom. During the novel, the community was thinking how much money is Kino going to get the pearl for and most of the community was jealous of how much money he’ll get. People think he’ll treat them differently with the money but not when Kino was poor as them. The pearl buyers were telling Kino that the pearl wasn’t actually a pearl it was like fools gold. Kino made a huge fit about and didn’t take an offer as well as the pearl buyers telling Kino “any pearl buyer will tell you the same thing as one of us here.” At the end of the novel, one person attacked Kino when he was down after hitting Juana. He killed the person who attacked him but was hunted by his friends. One of their friends killed their little child Coyotito and now Kino and Juana have to live somewhere else think of that memory of their first kid in their

In the novella “The Pearl” by John Steinbeck, Kino struggles throughout the book with valuing materialistic items over his family. This novella is a Mexican folk tale that originated in La Paz, Bolivia. It is about a pearl diver who is overcome by evil and greed . Kino struggles to let the Pearl of the World go because he believes he is helping his family. Kino ends up valuing the pearl more than his family.

Kino is beginning to realize how at first the pearl seemed to have brought fortune and good to his family, but it really had only brought evil to the family. By the end of the story, Kino and Juana have lost their son, Coyotito, and they wish things were back to the way they were before they found the pearl. Kino then throws the pearl back out into the ocean where he had found it: “And the music of the pearl drifted to a whisper and disappeared” (90). The music disappearing as the pearl sink back into the ocean symbolizes the evil leaving the family: now that the pearl has left, so has the evil. Kino now understands that their “wealth” has brought nothing but evil and has destroyed both himself as well as his family. Not only does Steinbeck use the motif of music to express the theme that good fortune, wealth, and prosperity steer even the most innocent of people towards a path of evil and corruption, but he also uses the motif of light and dark imagery.

In The Pearl, by John Steinbeck, evil transforms certain humble citizens into envious savages. It is this evil which moves the story along and adds drama. It causes the beginning of a happy spirit, but the downfall of goodness and humanity.