Sunday, April 13, 2008

The Pearl, By John Steinbeck

The Pearl, by John Steinbeck, is a book about an indian family consisting of Kino (dad), Juana (mom), and Coyotito (baby). Kino is a pearl diver who lives with his family in a house made of brush. One morning, Coyotito gets stung in the neck by a scorpion. Kino and Juana take the baby to a doctor in a nearby town, made of stone, instead of old brush. Kino did not have money, so they were not let in by the greedy doctor. Knowing they would get no help from anyone else, Juana rubbed seaweed on the sting. She thought that that was a good a treatment as any. Kino, Juana and Coyotito went out in the ocean in a canoe, so Kino could look for pearls. Kino dived down, and just as he was coming up, he spotted an oyster that had something shiny in it. Kino opened the oyster and found a giant pearl. He took the pearl home and showed the entire town. No one had ever seen a pearl that big. After owning the pearl for awhile, Kino noticed that he could get whatever he wanted with it. He also noticed that other people were trying to get it. The doctor heard about the pearl and decided to visit Coyotito to help his scorpion sting. Kino did not trust the doctor, but did not know anything about medicine, so he had to trust the doctor. The doctor put a mixture of ingredients on the sting and said he would be back in an hour. The sting had swollen up, and when the doctor returned, he put another ingredient on the sting. The doctor told Kino to pay whenever he wanted. People started to try to steal the pearl after the doctor came. Kino had decided to go into the doctors town to sell the pearl. The pearl dealers were evil  men that try to take advantage of what people do not know about pearls. They gave Kino a price that was under what Kino would have expected. Kino was mad so he didn’t sell the pearl, but decided to go into the capital of his country to sell it. The news spread and soon Kino was fighting off people to protect the pearl. The worst happened, and kino ended up killing a man and having to hide the body. Kino’s house was burned, and his canoe was punctured, so he had to take his family to the capital. On the way, Kino hides his tracks, knowing that there were trackers after him. Kino traveled a long way, and after a while, he found a water hole with caves that he and his family could hide in. Kino carefully made his way up into a cave and saw the trackers. He thought, “They looked like two ants, with one big one following behind”. The trackers found the water hole and stayed there in the night. Kino crawled his way down the cliff and up behind the tracker with a gun. He took the gun, shot the tracker, and shot the other trackers, but hit Coyotito in the head on accident.

Reflection: In this book, I think the oppression of native culture was the main idea. There were lots of cases where there was oppression over a native culture in this book and in other older books. The oppression of native culture in this book was when the sneaky doctor tried to take money from Kino’s family by making the baby sick, and then curing him. Kino did not know about medicine and treatments, so he had to trust the doctor. The doctor also tried to do this in the beginning of the book, when Kino and Juana tried to take Coyotito to the doctor. They were rejected because they had no money, and the excuse was that the doctor was not there. Another example of the oppression of native culture was when the pearl dealers tried to offer Kino 1,500 pesos when it could have been worth 50,000 pesos. The pearl dealers all thought the same way. They wanted to make Kino, who doesn't know how pearls are valued, think that the pearl that he had brought to them was worthless. This kind of sneakiness has also been used when Europeans traveled across america and traded with the native Indians. Also when the Europeans came to Hawaii and traded with the Hawaiians.

Personal Reflection: My personal thoughts on the Pearl were that the people who can trick you do trick you, and the people who can’t trick you, get tricked. It might seem mean, but it is what actually happens in life. I decided this when kino was tricked by the doctor and pearl dealers. Kino might have been able to trick the pearl dealers to a higher price if he knew how. When Kino saw the strange ingredients in the doctors bag, he could have tricked the doctor into admitting that he had made the swelling on Coyotito neck in the first place. I personally think that the author of this book might have tried to tell the readers that people who are smarter can and will take advantage of other people when they can. Also that it is rare to find a sneaky person that does not use their abilities. This book is a good book to read if a student or active reader would like to learn more about the unjust treatment of cultures from more developed cultures. This book is also a good book to read if you want to learn more about what happens when greed overrides your normal behavior and feelings of peoples greater fortune. The Pearl has a lot of examples of this concept. One example is when the doctor tries to take Kino’s pearl by charging him for medical service. Another example is when the church father tries to baptize Coyotito and marry Kino and Juana. The example that Kino gave was when he stared at the pearl and imagined Coyotito going to school and his family wearing new cloths. He was wearing a new “fine black felt” hat in the pearl, instead of the ones he usually has that are made of straw. He also wanted to have a new shiny rifle, and he could buy all these things with the pearl. The town was fine without the pearl in the beginning, but when it came into the story, people only thought about what they could get out of it. The townspeople were not happy for Kimo’s family, but they were jealous. Juana saw this and tried to tell Kimo what was happening but all he could focus on was how the pearl would make him happier and how his life would be easier. Kino had saw, “to the lovely gray surface of the pearl came the little things Kino wanted: a harpoon to take the place of one lost a year ago, a new harpoon of iron with a ring at the end of the shaft; and-his mind could hardly make the leap-a rifle-but why not, since he was so rich. And kino saw Kino in the pearl, Kino holding a Winchester carbine. It was the wildest daydreaming and very pleasant.”

1209 words        --Dylan Morrison-Fogel

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