THE PEARL Essay, Research Paper

Elena Smukler

A parable is a short fictional narrative from which a moral is drawn. Many lessons are

presented and demonstrated in parables. Lessons are experiences, examples, or observations

that impart beneficial new knowledge or wisdom. Lessons are advantageous to communities, and essential in life. From lessons we learn the ways of living, and we

acquire the distinction between pure and immoral. John Steinbeck, in his parable The Pearl,

illustrates the messages, “Luck comes with disaster,” ?Knowledge is power? and ?Money is the root of all evil.?

John Steinbeck shows us how luck brings about disaster by all the unfortunate things that

happen to Kino and Juana when they find the ?Pearl of the World.? Although the pearl should have brought them luck, there was a great deal of foreshadowing of disaster. Juana consistently reminds Kino of the pearl?s evilness, and we suspect danger when we learn of the egotistical doctor and priest. The doctor?s statement converts from ?Have I nothing better to do than cure insect bites for ?little Indians?? I am a doctor not a veterinary,? to ?He is a client of mine. I?m treating his child for a scorpion sting.? The priest?s self-centered thoughts led to thoughts of how he could persuade Kino to give him money, as proven by the following quote ?And it put a thoughtful look in his eyes and a memory of certain repairs necessary to the church. He wondered what the pearl would be worth.? The priest searched for reasons Kino would have to repay him and he wondered if he had married Kino or baptized Coyotito. The actions of the self-centered doctor, priest, and neighbors led to the death of Coyotito, the son of Kino and Juana. John Steinbeck also shows us that luck comes with disaster when someone almost stole the pearl. To quote Abigail Van Buren, ?If you want a place in the sun, you?ve got to put up with a few blisters?- Fortune comes with hardship and with good occurrences there are disadvantages.

We learn how unfairly ignorant people are treated in the quote ?Knowledge is power.? John Steinbeck shows readers that Kino?s people, who were somewhat illiterate, were unjustly dealt with when Kino is cheated from the fair amount of money he should have gotten when he attempted to sell his newfound valuable pearl. Had Kino been more educated and therefore more powerful the dealers would have treated him as an equal and hence granted him the correct amount of money that should have been presented to him. We learn that because of Kino?s ignorance and unawareness, Coyotito was poisoned and nearly killed by the same doctor who had previously neglected to cure him. If Kino was knowledgeable a different outcome would have occured. His ignorance kept him from either returning the pearl to the ocean where it wouldn?t bring evil, or selling it at a low price to the pearl buyers as to release the evil from his household. Knowledge is a powerful trait in our society and in the event that our population was less oblivious and more educated, that majority would be more powerful. From the expression ?Knowledge is power? we discover that ability, strength, and authority (power) are all factors of wisdom or knowledge.

In The Pearl, we learn that money is the root of all evil by the tragedies that arise upon Kino when he obtains money. This phrase originates from the New Testament, which explains that most wrongdoing occurs because people are greedy for money and the things it will buy. Although Kino has not yet collected his fortune, he is on the verge of acquiring a great amount of money. His forthcoming wealth influenced all sort of people to grow interested in Kino ? ?people with things to sell and people with favors to ask. Kino became every man?s enemy, and the money stirred up evil in the town.? We learn this from the phrase ?The poison sacs from the town began to manufacture venom, and the town swelled and puffed from the pressure of it.? Trackers, who had senses as sensitive as hounds and had the ability to follow any trail and hunt anything, were persuaded to hunt down Kino and Juana for their pearl. Juana anticipated evil as spoken in the following phrase ?Kino, this pearl is evil. Let us destroy it before it destroys us?Kino it is evil, it is evil!? Also, Kino grew strongly determined to procure money from the pearl, and he grew full of rage and unusual evilness: ?He hissed at her like a snake, and Juana stared at him with wide unfrightened eyes. She knew there was murder in him?. The pearl brought about much evil from pearl buyers, neighbors, beggars, trackers, Kino, and altogether the community. We learn that ?For the love of money is the root of all evils?- the affection for wealth introduces disaster and misfortune.

?If this story is a parable, perhaps everyone takes his own meaning from it and reads his own life into it.? John Steinbeck starts off his classic, The Pearl, with these very words and ends it with ?And the music of the pearl drifted into a whisper and disappeared.? This story is a lesson from which each person can find significance in. The Pearl is a parable, not only does it depict the three lessons presented in this essay, “Luck comes with disaster,” ?Knowledge is power? and ?Money is the root of all evil,? but it also illustrates many other distinct lessons and morals. These lessons are fundamental or basic keys to life, and had Kino and Juana discovered these messages previous to their misfortunes they would not have been robbed, cheated, and a witness to death. A moral relates to the principles of right and wrong, this story a ?morality tale? consists of the basic lessons primary to existence.