the pearl summary+reaction--dylan snyder

In the book The Pearl, it starts off by introducing a family living by the sea. The family consists of, Kino, he is a diver whose skills have been pasted down from generation to generation, his wife Juana, and his son Coyotito who gets stung by a scorpion and becomes very ill. At this point, the dilemma unfolds. Kino and his family goes out the next day to go canoeing and diving, ironically he finds a pearl that is strangely large and he can sell for a great amount of money, at least that’s what he thinks. He plans to pay for a church wedding, and an education for his son as he said "This is our chance".

This part of the story is where things get a little twisted. That morning the doctor was supposed to come over and take a look at Coyotito's scorpion sting, instead he did not come. Then when Kino finds the pearl the doctor is at his service very quickly and makes a potion that is supposed to help him with his spasms. Then he asks about his payment right away. He says that he will right away sell the pearl. The local priest comes over and tries to be nice to him and to remind him his place in the church.

Another event that happened to Kino was that one night he decided to bury the pearl underneath the fire pit in the house, and surprisingly a thieve comes in and there is a fight that ends up in Kino chasing him away. At this point Juana feels that the pearl is evil and bad luck and they should get rid of it.

The following morning another conflict occurs. Kino and Juana decide to take the pearl into town to sell it to get rid of the bad luck that has come with it. All of the dealers knew that Kino was coming and all offer low on the pearl. Kino then decides to take that pearl home and then return the next day to sell it at the capital. Juana again says that the pearl was bad luck and evil and should get rid of it fast. Kino says that he is a man and she needs to be quiet.

The next conflict that the pearl brought them was when Kino is attack by vandals. The turnout leaves Kino killing one of them over the pearl. He soon sees his canoe destroyed and his house on fire. he soon has to hide out at his brother Juan Thomas’s house.

Kino, Juana, and Coyotito all set off to the captial. Kino then notices that he is being traced, so they run up the mountain side, hoping to evade the trackers. He creates a false trail to throw them off course. they then make a camp at a waterhole. Later that night, the trackers make a camp nearby. Kino decides its a good time to attack. While he was walking over to attack them. Coyotito lets out a scream and then one of the trackers quickly shoots his rifle in that direction. Kino soon finished up killing the trackers. once he goes back to his camp, he relizes that the rifle shot killed Coyotito.

They decide to make a decent back home. When they get there. He takes his last good look at the pearl, then throws it will all his might back into the ocean under the sunset.

REACTION:

I feel the very first conflict in the story is the first major sign of greed. The doctor thought that they were just poor natives that couldnt pay the doctor bill. But, once the doctor learns that they have the pearl. He is there is a flash. The only question he asks is about his pay. He doesnt care that coyotito is hurt. He just wants his money as fast as he can get it.

The second sign of greed is when the priest comes over to remind him that he is a part of the church. And reminds him to pay his offering to the church. I can't believe that the priest would even do that and be that greedy. Even he only cares about his money.

Another example of greed in the book is all the thieves that try to steal the pearl. They want the money for themselves, even though they didn't earn it, they don't care that Kino will be very upset and dissapointed when he loses the pearl. They don't care abut anybody but thereselves, just like the doctor and the priest. very self-centered. As long as they get what they want it's alright for them.

I also think that the pearl buyers were greedy. I know thats how business works, buy low, sell high. But when they saw him with the pearl, they all put on their poker face and bidded as low as possible. But, if Kino knew how to reason with them, he would have of. But he didn't. The buyers did know how to though. Salesman that can trick you, will. If you don't know how to trick them back, you will be tricked. It's as easy as that. So to sell a valuable like that, you really have to know what you are doing. But it is good that he didn't take one of those offers. But i the long-run, it's bad because he didn't end up selliing the pearl anyway. He flew it into the ocean.

Another good example of greed is the vandals that destroyed Kino's stuff. The people that did that were defiantly friends of the guy that Kino killed. So they wanted to get back at him for doing what he had to do. He gave the thieve what he deserved, and then gets punished for it. But, i don't really get it. If they were mad at him for killing their friend, why didn't they just kill him? they knew that burning down his house and destroying his boat would just chase him out of town. because later they tried to kill him. That just made it harder to find him and kill him.


PERSONAL VIEW:

I thought that the book was just okay. It was kinda boring. there wasn't much action until the part where they set off for the capital. Before that part, once they said they were going to journey to the capital. i knew that some adventure was going to happen. And yes, some did. Coyotito died and Kino killed three people at once, when they had guns.

I believe that the pearl did have something to do with all the bad luck. I know that that wouldnt really happen in real life. But in the book, I think that the author was trying to tell us it was.