The Pearl Literary Analysis

What if you found a giant pearl and you were poor? Would you sell it for money? This is what happened to Kino and Juana in the book The Pearl by John Steinbeck. After a little bit, the life of Kino soon becomes the pearl. He almost cared more for the pearl than his little baby Coyotito. In the end he ends up killing 4 men and his baby dies. Then he throws the pearl in the ocean so it doesn't ruin his life anymore. These events in the book clearly state that this book is a tragedy it has all the right characteristics, the right purpose and plot line, and symbolism.


In The Pearl there is a lot of symbolism and in The Pearl there are tons because the author John Steinbeck is very descriptive. Some of the big symbolism was mostly death and darkness. In the beginning it is all happy until the scorpion comes in and bits Coyotito, the scorpion was the first bit of symbolism. After this there is just constant symbolism. Night, shadows, dogs barking, closet, horse, hissing like a snake, and wolves. The pearls symbolism states that it obviously lines up with tragedy.

I believe that the characteristics and the purpose also state that The pearl is a tragedy. The main character Kino protects his family and is control the whole time. This story is also realistic. This could happen any day to any of us. The purpose of the story is to learn a morale lesson and learn from our mistakes. The lesson of the story is that sometimes greed can take over your perfectly fine life and that we should look back at our mistakes and make sure we don't do them again.

All of these state that the Pearl is a tragedy, but there is one more key thing the plot line. The plot line for this story give away that it is a tragedy. It starts off with Conflict for M.C. - Coyotito get stung by a scorpion. Then, rise to power-Kino finds the pearl. After this, tragic flaw- Kino's life becomes is the pearl. Then, tragic fall- Kino killed a man then has to leave his home. Finally, death- he runs away with his family runs into trackers and kills them all and his baby Coyotito dies by getting shot.

The book The Pearl by John Steinbeck is an O.K. book. The main purpose of the book is to make sure that we realize that greed could eventually do this to us in the future like it did to Kino. It is very descriptive and has a lot of symbolism and is clearly a tragedy because all the clues line up and the characteristics are exact. This was one of the better books I have read in school.