Reflection on The Pearl

What I think I can take away from the story of “The Pearl”

The Pearl is mainly about Kino and his family, and a story of their lives. As a reader, we get to see the thoughts of many different characters, and as a reader, we can come to conclusions about things. Things like “You shouldn’t let want for materialistic things ruin everything else in your life.” I think that’s one major idea that I’ll take away from this book. Time and time again, Kino puts the pearl and wealth and future hopes before the ones he loves. Such as on pages 38 and 39, the first time when Juana asks Kino to throw away the pearl, Kino says no. He says “This is our one chance. Our son must go to school. He must break out of the pot that holds us in.” Juana complains by crying out “It will destroy us all. Even our son,” but Kino, of course, ignores it. In this example, Kino is only thinking about Coyotito in the future, and his materialistic hopes for his first-born son. I don’t blame him for caring about his son’s future, but I think he should think more about the “now” than the “later”. At the time, Coyotito wasn’t yet completely cured of the scorpion sting, and Kino wasn’t thinking of using the pearl’s wealth to help him. I couldn’t understand how he could care so much about money like that. Of course, he’s living really poorly right now, but no matter how much money you have, family should come first. I think we see that we shouldn’t want materialistic things enough to ruin everything else in life. Because eventually, Coyotito is killed. All because of the pearl. They didn’t even get the money from the pearl. They didn’t even get a chance to send Coyotito to school.

Also, I think we can see that “money is the root of all evil” idea coming up in the story. As Kino thinks about all the money he’ll have, he starts to get this new almost evil way of thinking. He’s suspicious of everyone, and he’s not even wrong to be, because these people are thinking evil thoughts too. Like with the doctor, Kino is constantly hearing the Song of Evil, and he’s very suspicious of what the doctor is doing. But Kino is suspicious because the doctor is thinking thoughts on how to get Kino’s pearl, how to steal it, etc. Money brings out the evil in humans. We also see this when Juana tries to throw the pearl away. Kino gets this savage-like rage because he wants this money from the pearl, and his wife is throwing the pearl away. He actually kicks and hits his wife! I couldn’t believe that Kino was doing that, just because of the pearl. The money’s bringing evil out of him.

I think that these two ideas and “lessons”, I guess, are things I will learn and take away from The Pearl. Through reading this book, I realized that if ever I were put in a situation like Kino’s, I shouldn’t put too much importance on the money. Because what is money when you have no one to spend it on?