struggle for existence incidents in the pearl john steinbeck

Not knowing any better, Kino allows the doctor to 'treat' his child. When Kino tells him that his son is nearly back to normal, the doctor lies to them and says that the baby could still be deathly ill. He does not mention that he has heard anything about the pearl, he says only that he heard that they have a baby who was stung by a scorpion. The doctor who refused to treat Coyotito only the day before arrives. Others in La Paz have more sinister ideas. His desires are quite modest, given his gains. He would also like to officially marry his wife in a church. Kino has his own plans for the money though, specifically he hopes to give his son, Coyotito a good education. Before long the town Priest visits the little village, something he never does, specifically to subtly pressure Kino to donate heavily to the church. Everyone in the town, everyone in the village, even complete strangers, start to imagine how they themselves could benefit from Kino's good fortune. Word about Kino's pearl spreads very quickly. It is a pearl bigger than anything ever found in the area. What he and Juana find are outside of their wildest expectations. Eventually, he finds one that is set apart from the rest, it is larger, and cleaner than the other oysters, and for some reason Kino has a good feeling about what might be inside. While Juana prays in the canoe, Kino dives for oysters. In hopes that they might find a pearl worthy of the doctor's attention, Kino and Juana immediately begin searching for a better pearl. The doctor is unimpressed, and pretends to be called out on an emergency. They take with them everything they have of value: eight small misshapen seed pearls. Juana decides that if the doctor will not come to Coyotito, she and her husband will have to take their son to the doctor. Juana desperately screams for someone to fetch the doctor, but Kino and the other residents point out that the doctor has never come to the village, and even if someone attempted to ask him to come, he would not. However, things change when Coyotito is stung by a scorpion in a freak accident, and the extent of the deprivation they suffer from being poor, uneducated, and indigenous becomes obvious.īecause of their son's size Juana and Kino are terrified that he might succumb to the scorpion sting without medical intervention.

Their lives are simple, and poor, but in the opening of the pages the family seems extremely content with their lives. Kino, his wife Juana, and their baby son Coyotito live in a poor village on the edge of a fairly prosperous town called La Paz.

Steinbeck introduces us to a young family of indigenous Mexicans who make a living pearling. John Steinbeck's 1947 novella is a kind of parable about how the things we think we want desperately can actually sometimes destroy our lives when they come to pass.

Struggle for existence incidents in the pearl john steinbeck