Jimmy Mesmer, Cam Love, Corey Michocki English 8-2 Mrs.

Bynum 10/27/09

Mans True Self

John Steinbeck's The Pearl is full of symbolic representations that relate his story to everyday life. His novella is revealing about human pride, greed, and emotion, as well as the nature of humans as a race. His messages are casually evident in his story, and Steinbeck uses his characters very well to symbolize these things. The story is about a poor fisherman in a small Mexican village that comes upon a great fortune, and about how that fortune changes his life forever. This fortune causes tension and jealousy in an environment that would otherwise be serene and placid. The best aspect of The Pearl is that it is written with an ideal latitude, so as to permit the reader to interpret the general theme that Steinbeck provides in a way that personally suits the individual. Steinbeck uses the priest, the pearl buyers, and the doctor, to exhibit the true nature of man. Steinbeck uses the priest to show corruptions in generally honest organizations. The priest is part of something that should be honorable, but he wants the pearl for himself, not even to improve his church, which he should have wanted it for, showing he is dishonest.

The priest should not talk to Kino like a child, rather he should treat him like a normal human being like Kino is, but he does this anyways, ignoring Kino's manhood. Steinbeck shows this by saying "Children, he considered these people, and he treated them like children."(305). This contributes to Kino's paranoia. The priest should also help Kino to sell the pearl and only take a small share of the profit to use for his church. Part of a priest's job is to help people, not to try to steal from their neighbors, so if he was doing his job correctly, he would counsel Kino on what to do with the pearl, talking in total honesty as a friend would. The priest should be supportive of Kino, not trying to take the pearl for himself as he did in his greed, which made Kino more like an animal than a human. He should have assisted Kino in his visit with the pearl buyers and convincing the pearl buyers to give Kino a legitimate price for the Pearl of the World. Similar to the priest, Steinbeck uses the Pearl buyers to show how things are not really as they seem. Since the pearl buyers are well-educated, they know they can trick people into giving them next to nothing for a perfect pearl. Most of the people they buy the pearls from are poor townspeople who do not know the true value of a pearl. They should want the best for the poor people, but instead, they just want to cheat them out of their money. The pearl buyers tell Kino "This pearl is like fools gold"(49). They are telling him it is worthless in hopes of him selling it to them for a very low price, so they can turn around and sell it for a lot higher price and make a very high profit.

Kino knows the pearl is worth way more then what the pearl buyers are saying they are willing to pay, because he has never seen any pearl as perfect as his. As Kino is leaving, the pearl buyers looked at each other and knew they had "played too hard" and made their attempt at deception too apparent. When he picked up the pearl and started to walk away, the dealer said "I might go to fifteen hundred"(52). This represents perfectly the Native Americans' mistreatment by the 'white man' for so long of a time. Their discrimination was displayed as deceiving pearl buyers and towering city walls, designed to make a harsh, public separation between the two peoples. The Pearl Buyers oppressed the Indians like the rest of their countrymen, however, the pearl buyers may have just been simply capitalizing on a god-given business advantage that they had on the Native Americans. The Native Americans were uneducated in the practices of the European Settlers, and therefore considered to be unintelligent and idiotic by the settlers. So the Pearl buyers may not be completely full of greed, because they too are just looking to make a living, as is everybody, including Kino. Lastly, Steinbeck uses the doctor in his story to epitomize the true inner greed and egocentricity of man. Naturally, the intentions of a doctor should be entirely selfless, as to give a patient aid to the best of his ability. The doctor in The Pearl, however, is antithetical to this idea. The doctor in Steinbeck's story is ruled by his yearning for affluence and significance, and nothing else is of any importance to

him. He is greedy and selfish, and would not help anybody out of the goodness of his heart. The doctor's services must be bought, and they must be bought at as high a price that he could request. When informed of Coyotito's scorpion sting, the doctor refused and remarked, "Have I nothing better to do than cure insect bites for 'little Indians'? I am a doctor, not a veterinarian" (17). This clearly shows his view of any society class below his. When Kino obtains the pearl, however, the doctor suddenly becomes interested in the well being of Coyotitio. This is by no means coincidental. Steinbeck makes these attributes of the doctor very clear and slightly exaggerated, so as to convey his message in a comprehensible manner. However, it is not that evident in 'real life'. It is the nature of man to be selfish to some extent. The extent, however, is dependent upon what type of individual one is. In The Pearl, Kino loses everything he has because of his greed and paranoia. This 'pearl of pearls' introduces greed, jealousy, and hate into Kino's village, where Kino was perfectly and contentedly living in peace. Now he will never be the same because of it. Kino learns about himself through Steinbeck's illustration of the priest, the pearl buyers, and the doctor, and we learn about the nature of man in the same way. These three characters of Steinbeck's imagination are not inherently evil things, but because of the overwhelming need to covet, just because it is our nature as humans, even the best of us can give into our nature. This is demonstrated by Steinbeck using the

priest. All of this relates to our lives today, in the 'here and now'. Although Steinbeck's world in The Pearl and our world today are in different settings, the two are nearly the same. This is because the complexion of human beings has always been the same. Humans have always been tempted and angered, and we have always felt emotion. This is why Steinbeck's message to us in writing The Pearl is timeless, and that is the reason for the genuineness of this story's morals.