The Pearl
The Pearl, by John Steinbeck, is about a man named Kino. Kino is a poor man who lives in Mexico. He lives in a straw hut with his wife, Juana, and his baby, Coyotito. Kino dives for pearls in the estuary near his house. One day, Kino finds a huge pearl, the Pearl of the World. Kino then struggles to cope with all that the pearl brings to him, good and bad. However, Kino makes some bad decisions. The character in The Pearl who acts most admirably is his wife, Juana.
Juana can be independent from Kino and yet with him too. Juana knows that Kino has power over her as her husband, but she still makes her own decisions. “Now the tension which had been growing in Juana boiled up to the surface and her lips were thin. ‘This thing is evil,’ she cried harshly. ‘This pearl is…show more content… Some say that Juan Tomás does make a brave decision to hide Kino and his family. However, Juan Tomás hesitates and accepts only when Kino assures him that he will hide for one night only. “And Kino, looking closely, saw deep worry come into his brother’s eyes and he forestalled him in a possible refusal. ‘Not for long,’ he said quickly. ‘Only until a day has passed and the new night has come. Then we will go.’ ‘I will hide you,’ said Juan Tomás” (65). Some may say that Kino acted most admirably, too, but this is also not true. Kino does make some tough decisions like Juan Tomás did, but all of his decisions are not good. As Juana thinks, Kino is half insane and half god, but sometimes the insane takes him over and he acts crazily. “[Kino] had said, ‘I am a man,’ and that meant certain things to Juana. It meant that he was half insane and half god. It meant that Kino would drive his strength against a mountain and plunge his strength against the sea. Juana, in her woman’s soul, knew that the mountain would stand while the man broke himself; that the sea would surge while the man drowned in it”