First Impressions: The Pearl by John Steinbeck

I will begin this write-up with a story about my life that is not here nor there. When I was looking for a set of subjects to pick in St. Xavier’s, I did not choose literature. Because I loved reading too much. So the idea of getting so close to a story, figuring out its mechanics, scrutinising it, and dissecting meaning and symbols, instead of simply being awash in the glow of a journey undertaken through words – the idea did not appeal at all. When I had to decide a major, it was a toss-up between Sociology and Psychology. I chose ‘Sociology’ because it seemed expansive and interesting. One of our teachers had told us a couple of things about sociology that helped me make that decision:

(AA)  Sociology was the study of regularities in society. Psychology is the study of irregularities in an individual.

(BB)   The smallest unit to study in Sociology is a family. The smallest unit to study in Psychology is one person.

The poetic whim of this lens is how I decided Sociology. And incidentally, as a Sociology student, I read more literature than my own textbooks. And from that reading, I understood that true authentic literature is both and beyond – the mind of an individual, the mayhem of a world and the membrane that separates and holds them both.

That was a rather large prelude to Steinbeck’s ‘The Pearl’. First of all, I had not heard of this work by Steinbeck. The Pearl is a retelling of a Mexican Folk Tale. It is set around late 1940s in La Paz, Mexico. We follow the story of a small, contented family of fisherfolk. There’s Kino, the man of the house, his woman Juan, and their infant Coyotito whose gurgles, giggles, and burps fill up their lives. Kino wakes up and goes to fish in La Baja California every day. (Incidentally, La Baja was so pearl-rich that pearls from the region hand funded the Spanish Inquisition at one point.) He doesn’t have too much materially but has a stoic and supportive partner and a baby. In a very specific way and space, he is an emperor. And athers – of he has this ability – passed on by his forefathers of hearing appropriate music in his mind as events emerge. I am not sure whether this is literal but it is a beautiful way of conveying to us that Kino is very much in tune with his world and everything that is in it.

One day, the baby is stung by a scorpion. Juan commands that they go to the doctor in town. That walk from their hut to the doctor is one of the most spectacular descriptions of social divide that I have ever read. Juan is resolute because she is focusing on the baby. But Kino is keenly aware of how backward his class is. He feels shame. He feels inadequate that he doesn’t have the stride of an educated person. He feels helpless that he doesn’t know the medicine books that the doctors or priests quote when they want to save his son’s health or soul.

He is a diver. And in the world outside the sea and his hut, he is out of his depth.

The doctor is a corrupt man who, expectedly asks his man-Friday to turn away the family from the gate. He does not even meet them. Kino is ashamed. Juan is still resolute and she suggests that they go farther, across the ocean. Coyotito is wrapped up in a scarf and is losing pulse.

One thing leads to another and Kino and family set sail. Understandably, going farther will cost. So Kino dives to get some more pearls to support his trip. And he finds…the pearl. In an oyster that seems to hum the song of the sirens, Kino finds a large exquisite pearl that shows the reflection of a peaceful world where his family is happy and his baby is healthy.

Once he gets the pearl, Juan has managed to suck out the scorpion sting from little Coyotito’s body. And now the pearl becomes their lens to a wider world. Kino dreams of getting a gun, getting married, getting his baby baptized in the church in fine clothes, getting an education for his son so that his child will know what the books contain. Then slowly, he hears the tenors of the music change. He sees and senses avarice – of his neighbors, of the market, of the priests, of the doctor (Who miraculously shows up at their door and tells Kino that he will give a medicine to the child so that the scorpion poison is eliminated for good – except that the child gets worse.) He prevents the pearl from getting stolen.

He does a lot. And the story does not end well.

It is a short story of a simple couple who for a brief period became the custodian of something gorgeous and dangerous. I found the pearl motif very stunning.

Yes, it is about the actual pearl, of course. But also what the pearl represents – the quiet sanctity of the world that Kino, Juan, and Coyotito live in. The simplicity of the neighbors. The dream of a distant town. And then when the oyster is opened up, the actual pearl and all these other gems of peace, quietude, and contentment also get poisoned.

Even as I type this out, I am feeling a pain in my gut. The language is so lyrical and alarming. So much peace must mask so much pain.

“It was a morning like other mornings and yet perfect among mornings.”

“When Kino had finished, Juana came back to the fire and ate her breakfast. They had spoken once, but there is not need for speech if it is only a habit anyway. Kino sighed with satisfaction - and that was conversation.”

Then, the rise of the fierce nature that men have to protect their family…and also grow.

“He 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. And yet it was this thing that made him a man, half insane and half god…”

Steinbeck’s grip of how a larger social unit works different from a smaller social unit is so adroit.

“A town is a thing like a colonial animal. A town has a nervous system and a head and shoulders and feet. A town is a thing separate from all other towns alike. And a town has a whole emotion. How news travels through a town is a mystery not easily to be solved. News seems to move faster than small boys can scramble and dart to tell it, faster than women can call it over the fences.”

The Pearl is never listed as Steinbeck’s best works. But if ever there was a novella that meshed the knot of psychology with the weave of sociology and dyed it with some native myth and lore, this would be it.