The Pearl
Characters
Upgrade to LitCharts A+
Instant downloads of all 1912 LitChart PDFs(including The Pearl).
LitCharts Teacher Editions. Teach your students to analyze literature like LitCharts does.
Detailed explanations, analysis, and citation info for every important quote on LitCharts.
The original text plus a side-by-side modern translation of every Shakespeare play.
Already have an account?Sign in
The Pearl
byJohn Steinbeck
Teachers and parents!Our Teacher Edition on The Pearl makes teaching easy.
Ask LitCharts AI:
The answer to your questions
Get instant explanations to your questions about anything we cover.
Powered by LitCharts content and AI.
Ask LitCharts AI:
The answer to your questions
Ask LitCharts AI:
The answer to your questions
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Pearl, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Community
Social structures such as the family, village, and town, are central to The Pearl. The central unit, for Kino and Juana, is the family. Their daily lives and routines are organized around the family, and they make sacrifices for each other and for their son, Coyotito.
Outside the family’s hut is the village, which is small and generally comes together to follow and support Kino and his family when they are in need…
Good vs. Evil
The plot of The Pearl is driven by a constant struggle between the morally opposite forces of good and evil. Evil in The Pearl can appear in both man (the doctor) and nature (the scorpion); both evil man (the doctor) and good man (Kino); both ugly shape (the scorpion) and beautiful shape (the pearl). While the scorpion’s evil takes the form of lethal poison, man’s evil throughout…
Race, Tradition, and Oppression
Kino and Juana’s racial heritage both provides them with the grounding force of ritual and tradition and deprives them of power under the reign of European colonizers. They continue to sing the songs they have inherited from their ancestors, but they also continue to be oppressed as their ancestors were, by white people like the doctor and by people with economic influence like the pearl-dealers. Their oppression is brought increasingly to light throughout…
Get the entire The Pearl LitChart as a printable PDF.
"My students can't get enough of your charts and their results have gone through the roof." -Graham S.
Value and Wealth
The value and evaluation of material entities is a central theme in The Pearl. The value of the pearl, for example, requires reassessment throughout the novel: at the moment of its discovery, it seems to be worth Coyotito’s life. That the pearl-dealers then so underestimate the price of the pearl reveals how distant the monetary worth of something can be from its perceived value, and how much value is determined by those…
Nature
Nature is a powerful force in The Pearl. Natural elements often serve to instigate crucial plot-points. Sometimes they protect (as in the plants that keep Juana and Kino temporarily hidden from the trackers) and feed (as in the fire that cooks the corncakes); while at other times, they destroy (as in the scorpion that poisons Coyotito and the fire that burns down Kino’s house). And throughout the novel, Kino is described as being, like…
Copyright © 2024 All Rights Reserved
Save time. Stress less.
PDF downloads of all 1912 LitCharts literature guides, and of every new one we publish.- Detailed quotes explanations with page numbers for every important quote on the site.
- Teacher Editions with classroom activities for all 1912 titles we cover.
- PDFs of modern translations of every Shakespeare play and poem.
- Definitions and examples of 136 literary terms and devices. Instant PDF downloads.
- Refine any search. Find related themes, quotes, symbols, characters, and more.
- PDFs of modern translations of every Shakespeare play and poem.
- Definitions and examples of 136 literary terms and devices. Instant PDF downloads.
- Refine any search. Find related themes, quotes, symbols, characters, and more.
