Pearl - John Steinbeck

The Pearl / John Steinbeck

Main idea- The main idea of the book is the story of an Indian fisherman, who found a big, beautiful pearl, “the pearl of the world” as it was called in the book. During all the story he tries to sell the pearl for a good price so he could marry his wife again in a normal church, provide his son an opportunity to go to school and some more nice stuff. Also in the story he has to deal with some not nice, mysterious guys, who try to take it away from him.

Plot general- One pretendedly usual night, Kino (the fisherman, the husband, and the father) woke up in his bush house, in a village, and saw a scorpion who climbed to Coyotito’s (the son) bed. So, he and Joana (the wife, the mother) tried with no success to remove the scorpion from the baby. The baby was stung, and he needed immediately a doctor, although Joana tried to suck out the poison from the baby. The nearest doctor was in a city, but it didn’t matter to the parents, as the baby was their firstborn. They went to the doctor accompanied with their village people (during the entire story every one of the village people knows exactly what happens to another villager). The doctor refused to give a treatment to the baby, as Kino had too little and too few pearls to pay with. When the “delegation” returned to the village Kino and Juana took with them Coyotito, and went to the river, so Kino would search for better pearls. Kino found only one pearl, but it was a very big, and a very beautiful pearl. When he showed Joana the pearl, they noticed that the swelling on the baby’s body was already decreased, so there was a twice bigger happiness. When they came back to the shore, the whole village already knew that Kino had found “ the pearl of the world”, and a really short time later the village surroundings (the city doctor, the city pearl buyers and etc.) knew it also. Kino decided to go the next day to the city, sell there the pearl, get the money, marry his wife again in the church, buy himself a riffle and finance his son’s studying. As it was expected, that evening the doctor himself came to the family bush house and healed the baby (maybe it was only a pretending: the doctor gave the baby some powders, which may caused the baby’s crying later. After an hour he came back, and gave the baby some more powders which stopped the crying and made the baby’s swelling completely disappear), also the doctor asked for payment after the treatment. In the night, Kino woke up because he sensed some strange movement in the corner of his house, approximately, near the location, where he dug the pearl. With his knife he hit the stranger (he couldn’t see his face because of the dark), and made him run away. The next day Kino, Joana, Coyotito and the “village delegation “ went to the village to sell Kino’s pearl. The pearl buyers (in that city there was a net of pearl buyers which belonged to one person) presumably agreed about the price that they would offer to Kino, and it was very low. Kino didn’t accept the price that was offered to him, he thought that the pearl buyers were trying to cheat him, so he decided the next day to go to the capital, and sell the pearl there. In the night, he sensed that movement in his house again. He tried to hit the stranger with his knife, but the stranger succeeded to get out of the house. Kino