Characters

An interesting thing about the characters in ‘The Pearl‘ by John Steinbeck is their affinity to their cultural heritage. The characters’ cultural roots and station in society shape their perception, attitude, and development in the story of ‘The Pearl‘.

Kino

Kino is the protagonist of the story. He is a poor pearl fisherman married to Juana, with whom he has an infant son by the name of Coyotito. Before he finds a pearl, he is a simple man, content with his life and his love for his wife and child. He is also loyal to his people and the traditions which bind him to them as one people. He repudiates the oppression the European colonizers are perpetrating against his people.

His mind is alert, and he is extremely devoted to his work. He also feels a natural connection with nature which is the source of his and his family’s daily sustenance. He is in a state of innocence and totally in tune with the natural world, such that finds even the sounds of animals at night reassuring.

But then he happens to chance upon an oyster that yielded a pearl during one of his fishing engagements, and everything changes. It is as if a revolution occurs at the core of his being, and he becomes a completely different man. His family, of course, remains precious to him and at the center of all his endeavors, but he additionally becomes obsessed with big dreams of getting out of his impoverished state and giving his son a loftier future. He becomes obsessed with all the possibilities of material enhancement that the pearl could bring. He suddenly is no longer satisfied with his son being uneducated or his family being shabbily dressed. In short, he begins to crave more and more, and this new craving complicates his former simple life.

The complications manifest themselves progressively in terms of greed, conflict, and violence, which are some of the main themes in ‘The Pearl‘. He falls out of his initial state of innocence, sinking into corruption and disillusionment. His prior natural attunement to organic nature becomes debased, so much so that he even begins to find the sound of animals at night threatening rather than reassuring.

Juana

Juana is Kino’s loving and loyal wife. She is a more pragmatic and discerning person between her husband and her. For example, when their son Coyotito had been bitten by a scorpion, and Kino goes into a futile rage, she is the one who had enough alertness of mind to soothe the poor kid’s wound with a seaweed poultice. She is a typical traditional wife, devoted and subservient to her husband. And even though she is not always in agreement with his lines of action, she nevertheless obeys him at all times according to the dictates of their cultural tradition. For a moment, she too is caught in the snare of the ambitious greed engendered by the fortune of the pearl. But she snaps out of it soon enough, seeing the precious stone for the brewing disaster it ultimately proves to be.

She is of a conservative spirit, preferring to leave things as they are, including some of the obvious drawbacks she notices in respect of their customs and cultural traditions. On the contrary, once her husband had been bitten by the bug of greed and ambition following his discovery of the pearl, he craves to radically alter things. Juana remains in her state of undisturbed contentment and satisfaction with the status quo, believing that it is infinitely preferable to retain one’s initial lowly but peaceful state than to lose it all for the sake of an ambition for which there is no definite guarantee.

In other words, she is the one who possesses the modesty to factor in what they could lose from the pearl while her husband proceeds as if all the chances there are amount to a gain. She thus serves a crucial functional role in the narrative by being the element of moderation and equilibration of her husband’s extreme modes of action. Indeed she, on one occasion, tries to cast the pearl away altogether, back to the sea where it belongs.

The Doctor

The Doctor is a sort of anonymous character in the novella. He is a figure of material wealth, avarice, and exploitation. He is represented as a foreign-born character, a France native precisely. To that extent, therefore, he is a symbol of the colonial oppression being perpetrated against Kino and his people. He embodies the colonist’s supercilious attitude toward the natives, who, at any rate, the colonist neither understands nor cares to understand.

As his interior monologue in chapter one of the story indicates, he is so obsessed with his European origin and its cultural supremacist attitudes that he does not even realize how ignorant he is about the people among whom he lives and works. So fundamentally, he has no real interest in Kino and his kind, except there is something for him to exploit and gain from them. He, therefore, refuses to treat Kino’s son Coyotito when he is brought to him after the poor kid had been bitten by a scorpion because the child’s father does not have any money to pay for his medical services. In other words, he does not mind if or not the boy dies. It is of no consequence to him personally. Meanwhile, he is supposed to be a doctor bound by professional duty to save lives. This wicked refusal to treat Coyotito is a measure of the toll that political conquests such as those manifested by colonialism and a murderous inclination towards material profits take on human beings.

However, as soon as Kino finds the pearl, this same doctor goes to Kino’s house of his own accord and acts much friendlier all of a sudden. But of course, it is obvious his only interest is in what he might gain out of Kino’s new-found fortune, and his change in behavior towards Kino is a pointer to all the travails that are to trail Kino’s discovery of this pearl.

Coyotito

Coyotito is the infant son of Kino and his wife Juana. He is bitten by a scorpion, and it is partly on account of this misfortune that befalls him that his father, Kino feels so lucky when he finds the pearl, which turns out to become a worse misfortune than the first. Coyotito is the figure of how helpless man is ultimately in the order of things. Just as his helplessness as a mere child leaves him utterly at the mercy of his parents, so is a man at the mercy of the universe. And just as his father’s efforts to better his fortune come to naught despite his best intentions and efforts, so also does man’s honest strivings in the face of adversity often come to naught. It is just the natural order of things.

Juan Tomas

Juan Tomas is Kino’s elder brother. He is both adviser and protector to his brother Kino. Family ties to him are the supreme value, and he is the one person who does not seek to gain any material benefits out of Kino’s pearl. He does warn him, however, about the possible dangers of being the possessor of such a precious valuable. Nevertheless, when Kino becomes a hunted man for a man slaughter he commits in self-defense over the same pearl, Juan readily gives him and his family a hiding place in his own house and does not say a word to anyone about Kino’s whereabouts.

Apolonia

Apolonia is Juan’s wife. She is a mother of four children, and, like her husband, is sympathetic toward Kino’s plight and willingly lets Kino and his family find a fortress in their home in the time of trouble.

The other relevant characters include the priest, the pearl dealers, the beggars, and the thieves and trackers who trail Kino out of the village and occasion the death of his son thereby.

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