Moral Goodness Symbolic Representation Essay - 1,713 words

Steinbeck's The Pearl was based on a story he had heard during his expedition with a friend to the Gulf of California about a poor Mexican fisherman who found a pearl which he though would guarantee his future happiness, but however it almost destroyed him before he threw it back into the ocean (Astro 62). "While Ricketts idea about the inherent virtues of the simple, natural life serve as a thematic substratum on which Steinbeck builds his parable, the novelist's chief concern in The Pearl is with how man's failure to "participate" in "the region inward adjusts" can lead to complete personal and social disintegration" (Astro 66). "Man himself appears, becomes, or emerges as good or evil because of the way men use other men, nurturing or destroying the human relationship between them, validating or invalidating the meaning of their existence" (Karsten 54). "John Steinbeck can properly be called the author of disengagement on at least two levels, for its traces the symbolic journey and withdrawal of novels protagonist" (Hayashi 48). In Steinbeck's novels he offers a moral lesson about the nature of good and evil. Steinbeck illustrates that good and evil are inseparably intertwined and that this duality is essential to existence. Thus the ambiguous nature of the pearl- which at first symbolizes beauty and hope but becomes gray and ulcerous- parallels Kino's duality as he himself becomes cold and hardened (Meyer 30). At first the faces of evil, here and everywhere, are brilliant attractive, and tempting. It is only by man's nature that when Kino first discovers the pearl he's deceived by its brilliance and the false promise it holds out to him.


He declares that the pearl is his soul and if he gives it up he will give his soul up (Hayashi 49). Also in Steinbeck's novels he asserts that duality undergoes all of man's actions and that intertwining good and evil are a part of each postlapsarian [time after the fall of man] human (Meyer 29). "Good is identified both with admirable individual qualities (philanthropy, kindness, generosity, self respect, courage, creativity) and with conventional moral goodness. Evil is identified with ignoble individual qualities, with criminal acts, and with carnal pleasures, particularly sex acts: and not only with prostitution and perversions, but also with sexual satisfaction in general" (Fontenrose 375). The Pearl is a lyrical tale which Steinbeck calls these types of tales black and white story like a parable. "It is a parable about the search for happiness and the nature of man's need to choose between the inherently benign natural life the frantic self-oriented modern world (Astro 63). The very concern with material things with technology is for the most part unnecessary to mere biological survival. It is man's nature to want material things and still not satisfied (Metzger 45).


Just as man's existence is an accident so is the pearl and that existence has meaning within human relationships basic of which is the family. Just as the pearl is good it eventually becomes invested with evil because of the ways men use it (Karsten 54). "Kino's Faith in the seemingly desirable nature of the pearl is no less than an obsession, an obsession with almost religious fervor as the pearl becomes Kino's new God" (Hayashi 49). In The Pearl Steinbeck writes that humans are never satisfied with what you give them, that you give them one thing then they will just want something more. Steinbeck has favored to animals because they are satisfied with what they have and will want nothing more (Astro 63). "In The Grapes of Wrath Steinbeck stresses the evolutionary idea that men must adapt to changing conditions. Among the worst offenses he feels one man can commit against is that of inhibiting the process of adaptation or of causing another to revert to a former state in self-defense" (Hoffman 324). In The novels that Steinbeck writes he importance of the medieval pearl is centered in the role of the children in each.


Coyotito can in several ways be identified with Kino's "pearl of great value. " The pearl, which is from the sea is only a means by which Coyotito will be given a chance to get an education. Also the pearl brings new opportunities for at first the doctor refuses to treat Coyotito, but now the child becomes his means to getting the pearl, for the doctor feels that the child is the pearl. But more important than these fine relationships is the fact that if Coyotito dies he is gone and then the pearl has no significance. The moment the pursuer with the rifle fires, Kino kills him. Then Kino kills the two trackers who led the assassins to him (Morris 372). Sometimes when Steinbeck writes he uses symbolic representation, the musical parallel must now be related to the central theme, within the human relationship where Kino's life has meaning, the song of the family is warm, clear, soft and protecting.


Here in the song represents completeness. It continues to have these qualities as long as the song of ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

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Essay Tags: sexual satisfaction, moral lesson, symbolic representation, moral goodness, false promise

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