The Pearl essay #6: poverty, prejudice, and greed.

The story of the Pearl is parable that teaches us of poverty, prejudice and greed.
Certain characters that the author introduces in the story represent these three traits.
These three characters are: The doctor, representing prejudice, the town of La Paz
representing greed and Juan Tomas, Kinos brother, representing poverty. One of the
other main themes in the story is poverty versus prejudice, or the haves versus the havenots, and how greed changes people for worse.
Throughout the novel, there are many signs of poverty in Kinos village. Just
about every poor person in La Paz lives in the brush huts and eats corncakes that they
make themselves the beggars from in front of the church who were great experts in
financial analysis, looked quickly at Juanas old blue shirt, saw the tears in her shawl,
appraised the green ribbon on her braids, read the age of Kinos blanket and the
thousand washings of his clothes, and set then down as poverty people (8). When Kino
and his procession arrive at the doctors house, they are turned away the doctor has
gone out (12). by one of their own people. Its interesting to note that, when Kino asked
him to get the doctor in their native tongue, the servant ignores it and replies in Spanish,
the official language and the language of the servants employers and that of the people
who have oppressed Indians like Kino and the servant. The man who looked out was of
his own race. Kino spoke to him in the old languageThe gate closed a little, and the
servant refused to speak in the old language (10).
The doctor refuses to treat Coyotito, not just because he deemed the eight
misshapen pearls Kino tried to pay him with worthless but also out of prejudice. The
Doctor is a traditional Spanish colonial, a member of the white race that had beaten
Kinos indigenous people down into submission. He lives in a grand estate inside the city
of stone, and all day long he has enough wine and sweets to eat. he had on a his
dressing gown of red watered silk that had come from Paris, a little tight over the chest

now if it was buttoned. On his lap was a silver tray with a silver chocolate pot and a tiny
cup of eggshell china.his eyes rested in puffy hammocks of flesh and his mouth drooped
despondently.his whole subsequent life was memory and longing for France (10-11).
Everyone in town knows him, and knows of his ignorance, his cruelty, his avarice, his
appetites, his sins. They knew his clumsy abortions, and the little brown pennies he gave
for alms (9). He sees Kinos race as beneath his time and attention, nothing more than
animals. Have I nothing better to do, than cure insect bites for little Indians? I am a
doctor, not a veterinary (11). Unfortunately, the doctor isnt the only example of
prejudice in The Pearl. Even the priest is mildly racist at times. When he hears of Kinos
pearl, the priest remembers all the repairs the church needed, and he wonders if he
married Kino, or even if he baptized his son. These thoughts are brought on by the
possibility of having the pearl. Even though the priests intentions when he visited Kino
were good ones; he, just like everyone else, the priest wants to use the pearl for his own
purposes.
The once peaceful town of La Paz is a great example of greed. All the people of
the town can think about when they hear of Kinos good fortune is what they would do
with the money. In the brush houses by the shore Kinos neighbors sat long over their
breakfasts, and they spoke of what they would do if they had found the pearl (43). The
pearl not only makes Kinos dreams possible, but it allows other peoples dreams to seem
plausible as well. The name of the village, La Paz, is a play on words on Steinbecks part;
because the word La Paz in Spanish means peace, however during the pearl incident,
the town is anything but peaceful. The news stirred up something indefinitely black and
evil in the town; the black distillate was like the scorpion, or like hunger in the smell of
food, or like loneliness when love is withheld. The poison sacs of the town began to
manufacture venom, and the town swelled and puffed with the pressure of it (23). This
also foreshadows the changes that the idea of the pearl and the pearl itself, through Kinos
actions, disturb the social structure of their society.