The Pearl 1019and jealousy. Steinbeck himself describes the story as
“a parable,” a moral tale which can apply universally.
Living in close harmony to nature, Kino is eco-
nomically and politically poor, but rich in what he
needs to be happy: a loving wife, a healthy child,
his own house and boat, and a community of
friends, relatives, and neighbors. Yet, living close to
nature means fighting for survival in a world of
hunters and prey. When a scorpion bites his son,
Coyotito, he also discovers what it means to be poor
and oppressed, without funds for medical care and
exploited by the town’s literate, European ruling
class. For Kino, finding the pearl seems to be his
salvation, his hope for a better life for his family.
Instead, the pearl stirs up the dreams and ambitions
of the community, pitting neighbor against neigh-
bor, until Kino can throw it back into the sea and
release himself, his family, and his community from
its evil spell.
Written in simple yet elegant language, The Pearl
exhibits a deep respect for the natural world, and
a profound understanding of both human ecology
and moral responsibility. It serves as an excellent,
though brief, introduction to the writings of John
Steinbeck, one of America’s greatest writers.
Michael Zeitler
communIty in The Pearl
For John Steinbeck, the small Mexican fishing com-
munity on the Sea of Cortez that serves as the set-
ting of The Pearl is an organic whole, coexisting with
other communities in the natural world and subject
to the same natural laws. It is, Steinbeck informs
his readers, “a thing like a colonial animal,” with its
own nervous system and its own emotional life. Like
any living organism, the town’s “pulse and vibrating
nerves” react to external stimuli, and its intercon-
nected ganglia transmit information. It struggles to
reproduce itself through each succeeding generation,
propelled by the same biological instinct for survival
one finds in the natural world. “Let one man step
out of the regular thought or the known and trusted
pattern, and the nerves of the townspeople ring
with nervousness and communication travels over
the nerve lines of the town,” Steinbeck explains.
Throughout The Pearl, he explores varied ecological
communities, from oyster beds to mountain streams
to fishing villages. Taken together, a pattern emerges
emphasizing the interconnectedness of all things,
the significance of narrative memory and storytell-
ing in binding us one to another, to nature, and the
past, and the evolutionary importance of human
culture, the community without which we cannot
survive.
Steinbeck’s account of the discovery of the great
pearl is one example of the human community’s
interconnectedness, not only with nature but with its
own past. The oyster beds supply the town with both
food and revenue, and, conversely, swarms of fish live
off the oysters discarded by the pearl fishers. Kino’s
boat represents his ability to survive as a predator in
the oyster bed ecology, but it is a creation of human
culture, passed down as communal knowledge, and
thus a connection to his ancestors. The “song” he
adds to the morning sounds of awakened earth con-
nects him as much to a cultural ancestry as to the
natural habitat: “Now, Kino’s people had sung of
everything that happened or existed. They had made
songs to the fishes, to the sea in anger and to the sea
in calm, to the light and the dark and the sun and
the moon, and the songs were all in Kino and in his
people—every song that had ever been made.” In
ever-expanding spheres of influence, the webs of life
connect even the small invertebrates to the largest
of human empires. “This was the bed,” Steinbeck
notes, “that had raised the King of Spain to be a
great power in Europe in past years, had helped to
pay for his wars, and had decorated the churches for
his soul’s sake.”
In describing a human community metaphori-
cally as a colonial animal, interconnected through
ganglia of nerve cells, Steinbeck makes reference to
the role of narrative in transmitting cultural memo-
ries. The Pearl is framed in storytelling situations
that connect the tale of Kino and the pearl to the
town’s collective consciousness. “In the town they
tell the story of the great pearl,” he begins, remind-
ing us that “the story has been told so often it had
taken root in every man’s mind.” Again, we are told
at the end of the story that everyone in La Paz
remembers the family’s return: “There may be some
old ones who saw it, but those whose fathers and
whose grandfathers told it to them remember it nev-
ertheless. It is an event that happened to everyone.”