The Pearl

The Pearl begins in the home of Kino, his wife, Juana, and their baby, Coyotito. They live in a brush house on the Gulf of Mexico. We learn about songs that Kino hears in everything like the Song of the Family. The morning peace is disrupted when their son is bitten by a scorpion. Juana sucks the poison out but sends for a doctor. Although the doctor is called, he doesn’t come because “the doctor never came to the cluster of brush houses.” When they go to ask for the doctors themselves, he refuses to see him because they have no money. In order to pay the doctor, Kino dives for pearls in hope to find and sell some. As he dives, he hears the Song of the Undersea. He picks a big oyster and when he opens it, he finds the Pearl of the World. “It was as large as a sea-gull’s egg.”
Kino tells people that he’s going to use the pearl to give Coyotito an education so he could help his people. The priest comes and speaks to the family about the pearl and afterwards the doctor comes and warns Kino what will happen to the baby. After seeing the doctor, the baby gets better. That night, Kino is hurt when he stops a thief from taking the pearl. Although Juana thinks the pearl is evil, Kino will not give it up.
The next day, Kino goes to sell the pearl. The pearl buyers try to trick him into selling the pearl for less than it’s worth, but he sees through the trickery. He decides to sell the pearl at the capital. After consulting his brother on his decision, he is attacked at night again. They still have the pearl, but Juana believes it will destroy them. In the morning, Kino catches Juana trying to throw the pearl out to sea and stops her. On the way back to the brush house, another man comes to steal the pearl, and Kino kills the man when protecting himself. Now the family must run before the people of the town come after him. They plan to take all their belongings and sail away. But their house and possessions are burning and the canoe has holes drilled into it. They hide in Kino’s brother’s home and then hike north to try to find a safe place the next day.
The family finds that there are men following them. They try to lose the trackers, but the men always seem to find them. One night, Kino decides the only way to get away is to kill the trackers. Juana and Coyotito hide in a cave while Kino crawls to the tracker’s campsite. Kino is right next to the men, when the baby cries out. Thinking it was a baby wolf, one of the trackers shot it to stop the crying. Kino tries to stop the gun from going off and kills all three men. But he is too late and Coyotito dies.
When Kino and Juana come back to the village of brush houses, they throw the pearl into the sea.
My Response:
Throughout The Pearl, there are many examples of Kino’s people, a native culture being, oppressed. When Coyotitio gets bitten by the scorpion and the doctor is called, he doesn’t come. The doctor says, “‘Have I nothing better to do than cure insect bites for ‘little Indians’? I am a doctor, not a veterinary.’” when Kino and Juana asked the butler to bring the doctor. Calling the natives animals showed the lack of respect the doctor and “the rich people who lived in the stone and plaster houses of the town” had for the native people. They, including Kino, were trapped because of their lack of knowledge. The people in the town were taking advantage of them. For example, when the priest came to Kino’s home, he told him things that he didn’t know were true or not. The priest said to Kino, “thou art named after a great man – and a great Father of the Church . . . It is in the books.” Kino couldn’t know if he was really telling him the truth. When the doctor came to see the baby, he told Kino and Juana about what could happen to the baby if Coyotito were not treated. “He did not know, and perhaps this doctor did. And he could not take the chance of putting his certain ignorance against this man’s possible knowledge. He was trapped as his people were always trapped, and would be until, as he had said, they could be sure that the things in the books were really in the books.” This is why the pearl is so important to Kino. The pearl was going to set his people free. The rich people who lived in the town could easily trick and control Kino and his village because they knew things that the natives didn’t. When he shows the village his pearl, Kino says, “ ‘My son . . . will make us free because he will know – he will know and through him we will know.”
When the pearl dealers tried to cheat by saying that the pearl was not worth anything because it was a fake, Kino is outraged. He knew that the pearl was worth a great deal and it was the way he was going to liberate he and his people. To try to cheat Kino out of selling the pearl for its value was like cheating Kino and his village out of their freedom. Although the native people knew their land, they didn’t know how to read, to write, to do math, or any of the things they needed to know in order to live in the town. Like the rest of his people, Kino lives in a brush house while the doctor has a servant and other luxuries because they knew more about the things “in the books”.
The Pearl shows us what happens to an oppressed native culture. They are taken advantage of and exploited. While discussing Kino’s pearl, one of the natives said, “. . . all of us have been cheated all of our lives.”