Analyzing The Pearl Chapter One

Before you read this post, refer to my last post. Today, I would like to analyze chapter one of The Pearl by John Steinbeck. 

In the first paragraph, beginning with “Kino awakened in the near dark..”, our main character is still unknown. All we know is that his name is Kino. But we can infer a few things. When did Kino wake up? The point of time in which it is halfway between night to day. Who else also woke up? The pigs, chicken, and birds- all animals. It is almost as if in a sense Kino is like an animal, and later on, we see that Kino is representative of the natives, who have been mistreated like animals by the invading whites. 

The important allusion of Adam and Eve

But perhaps there is another way to view this. The fact that Kino is being on the level with animals shows the naturalistic state his family cherishes. He and his wife seem to live a simple life completely reliant on nature as we make out from the setting; almost reminiscent of Adam and Eve. So in here seems to be a theme of nature and God.

In fact, God is mentioned in the chapter, when Kino “watches with the detachment of God”  as a bug falls into and struggles to get out of an ant lion’s trap. Here is an excellent example of foreshadowing, because later on we can expect that just like the victim of the trap, Kino will be falling into a trap and struggling to get out of it. And at that time, just like Kino, God will just watch.

The question is: what is this trap? Is it literal? Or more likely figurative? Well, again, look back at Adam and Eve. Their trap was that they fell for a beautiful apple because of Satan in disguise of a snake convincing them to eat it. Their lives, once normal and routine, suddenly changed for the worse dramatically after this one incident. And so can we expect the same of Kino and his wife. Notice how it was mentioned that it “was a morning like other mornings.” obviously emphasizing the normal routine that this morning seemed to be in. But soon a trap will come to disrupt this all. (aka the theme of disruption)

This trap is the scorpion. The Song of Evil. And here’s one thing that makes this chapter really beautiful- how Steinbeck puts everything into a form of song. Again, this fact is representative of the fact that Kino and his family are more focused on spiritual/moral things rather than physical things. Songs are not things that can be touched or owned, but rather can be shared and felt. 

But now the Song of Evil strikes. Similarly, Satan has striked. Satan struck Adam and Eve, God’s most precious children, in the Bible; the scorpion here has struck Coyotito, Kino’s only child. Satan made Adam and Eve succumb to evil; in the novella, we also see succumbation. For right after the scorpion struck, Kino and Juana are faced with an important dilemma: the death of their son or going to the doctor. And the book makes special mention of “how surprising” it was for Juana to actually decide to call the doctor.

The materialistic doctor

But let’s look at the doctor. The description of him shows him being wealthy, wanting nothing to do with the poor, living in a grand house, etc. Obviously signs of a materialistic life, a stark contrast to the much simpler life of Kino and his family. This materialistic life is evil. Juana surprisingly decides to choose this path into the doctor, representing the path to evil. It shows how much of an extent this dilemma is causing to Kino’s family and how much disruption, given that now at this point a spiritual family is turning towards a materialistic man.  And note that they did not do this happily. They were forced to do it. They were forced to succumb to evil, in a sense.

But my most favorite part- after the doctor refused to help, Kino who is mad punches the gate really hard. “He looked down in wonder at his split knuckles and at the blood that flowed down between his fingers.” To me, that is a very beautiful ending. In a sense, we can take it as a lesson- don’t fight violence with violence. Here, Kino’s punch is symbolic of the natives fighting back against the white’s violence against them. The result is not victory but rather a self-defeating blow, symbolized by Kino bleeding himself when he intended to strike the gate.

Or we can also view the ending as Kino’s seeming hopelessness. His family has already been struck by evil and he cannot turn back. No matter how hard he tries to change it, he will just end up hurting his own family more. 

End of Analysis*** P.S. This post is probably bad quality given that I did this in the middle of my sleep. Sorry.

Passage From The Pearl

Today, I would like to show you one of the most beautiful passages I have ever read- from the book The Pearl by John Steinbeck. In my next post, I will analyze it.

“In the town they tell the story of the great pearl- how it was found and how it was lost again. They tell of Kino, the fisherman, and of his wife, Juana, and of the baby, Coyotito. And because the story has been
told so often, it has taken root in every man’s mind. And, as with all retold tales that are in people’s hearts, there are only good and bad things and black and white things and good and evil things and no in-between anywhere.

“If this story is a parable, perhaps everyone takes his own meaning from it and reads his own life into it. In any case, they say in the town that…”

Kino awakened in the near dark. The stars still shone and the day had drawn only a pale wash of light in the lower sky to the east. The roosters had been crowing for some time, and the early pigs were
already beginning their ceaseless turning of twigs and bits of wood to see whether anything to eat had been overlooked. Outside the brush house in the tuna clump, a covey of little birds chittered and flurried with their wings.

Kino’s eyes opened, and he looked first at the lightening square which was the door and then he looked at the hanging box where Coyotito slept. And last he turned his head to Juana, his wife, who lay beside
him on the mat, her blue head shawl over her nose and over her breasts and around the small of her back. Juana’s eyes were open too. Kino could never remember seeing them closed when he awakened. Her dark eyes made little reflected stars. She was looking at him as she was always looking at him when he awakened. Kino heard the little splash of morning waves on the beach. It was very good- Kino closed his eyes again to listen to his music. Perhaps he alone did this and perhaps all of his people did it. His people had once been great makers of songs so that everything they saw or thought or did or heard became a song. That was very long ago. The songs remained; Kino knew them, but no new songs were added. That does not mean that there were no personal songs. In Kino’s head there was a song now, clear and soft, and if he had been able to speak of it, he would have called it the Song of the Family.

His blanket was over his nose to protect him from the dank air. His eyes flicked to a rustle beside him. It was Juana arising, almost soundlessly. On her hard bare feet she went to the hanging box where
Coyotito slept, and she leaned over and said a little reassuring word. Coyotito looked up for a moment and closed his eyes and slept again. Juana went to the fire pit and uncovered a coal and fanned it alive
while she broke little piesh over it.

Now Kino got up and wrapped his blanket about his head and nose and shoulders. He slipped his feet into his sandals and went outside to watch the dawn.

Outside the door he squatted down and gathered the blanket ends about his knees. He saw the specks of Gulf clouds flame high in the air. And a goat came near and sniffed at him and stared with its cold yellow
eyes. Behind him Juana’s fire leaped into flame and threw spears of light through the chinks of the brush-house wall and threw a wavering square of light out the door. A late moth blustered in to find the
fire. The Song of the Family came now from behind Kino. And the rhythm of the family song was the grinding stone where Juana worked the corn for the morning cakes.

The dawn came quickly now, a wash, a glow, a lightness, and then an explosion of fire as the sun arose out of the Gulf. Kino looked down to cover his eyes from the glare. He could hear the pat of the corncakes in the house and the rich smell of them on the cooking plate. The ants were busy on the ground, big black ones with shiny bodies, and little dusty quick ants. Kino watched with the detachment of God while a dusty ant frantically tried to escape the sand trap an ant lion had dug for him. A thin, timid dog came close and, at a soft word from Kino, curled up, arranged its tail neatly over its feet, and laid its chin delicately on the pile. It was a black dog with yellow-gold spots where its eyebrows should have been. It was a morning like other mornings and yet perfect among mornings.

Kino heard the creak of the rope when Juana took Coyotito out of his hanging box and cleaned him and hammocked him in her shawl in a loop that placed him close to her breast. Kino could see these things
without looking at them. Juana sang softly an ancient song that had only three notes and yet endless variety of interval. And this was part of the family song too. It was all part. Sometimes it rose to an aching chord that caught the throat, saying this is safety, this is warmth, this is the Whole.

Across the brush fence were other brush houses, and the smoke came from them too, and the sound of breakfast, but those were other songs, their pigs were other pigs, their wives were not Juana. Kino was young and strong and his black hair hung over his brown forehead. His eyes were warm and fierce and bright and his mustache was thin and coarse. He lowered his blanket from his nose now, for the dark poisonous air was gone and the yellow sunlight fell on the house. Near the brush fence two roosters bowed and feinted at each other with squared wings and neck feathers ruffed out. It would be a clumsy fight. They were not game chickens. Kino watched them for a moment, and then his eyes went up to a flight of wild doves twinkling inland to the hills. The world was awake now, and Kino arose and went into his brush house.

As he came through the door Juana stood up from the glowing fire pit. She put Coyotito back in his hanging box and then she combed her black hair and braided it in two braids and tied the ends with thin green ribbon. Kino squatted by the fire pit and rolled a hot corncake and dipped it in sauce and ate it. And he drank a little pulque and that was breakfast. That was the only breakfast he had ever known outside of feast days and one incredible fiesta on cookies that had nearly killed him. When Kino had finished, Juana came back to the fire and ate her breakfast. They had spoken once, but there is not need for speech if it is only a habit anyway. Kino sighed with satisfaction- and that was conversation.The sun was warming the brush house, breaking through its crevices in long streaks. And one of the streaks fell on the hanging box where Coyotito lay, and on the ropes that held it. It was a tiny movement that drew their eyes to the hanging box. Kino and Juana froze in their positions. Down the rope that hung the baby’s box from the roof support a scorpion moved slowly. His stinging tail was straight out behind him, but he could whip it up in a flash of time……

Read the rest of the passage here: The Pearl Chapter One (←click the link)