Kino
Kino, The Pearl’s protagonist, is an extremely simple character,
• He is motivated by his love for his family,
• He is loyal to the traditions of his village and his people, and
• He feels frustrated at his people’s oppression at the hands of their European colonizers.
• Kino also possesses a quick mind and a strong work ethic, and
• He feels a close, pure kinship with the natural world, the source of his livelihood.
At the beginning of the novella, Kino is essentially content with his life. However, two seemingly chance occurrences—Coyotito’s scorpion sting and Kino’s discovery of the pearl—open Kino’s eyes to a larger world.
Kino begins to desire material wealth and education for his son, his simple existence becomes increasingly complicated by greed, conflict, and violence. Kino’s character is a gradual decline from a state of innocence and simplicity to a state of corruption and disappointment. The factors causing this decline are ambition and greed.
At the end of the novel, Kino’s tranquil relationship with nature has been distorted and reversed. This can be seen by the fact that Kino finds the sounds of the animals at night threatening rather than reassuring.
Juana
Kino’s wife, Juana, is more reflective and more practical than Kino.
• She prays for God help when Coyotito is stung by a scorpion.
• She also being practical to soothe the wound with a seaweed poultice.
• Juana is loyal and submissive, obeying her husband as her culture order, but she does not always agree with his actions.
Like Kino, Juana is at first seduced by the greed the pearl awakens, but she is much quicker than Kino to recognize the pearl as a potential threat. In fact, Juana realizes the pearl as a symbol of evil.
As Kino seeks to change their lives, Juana believes that their lives will be better if they keep things as they are. Kino can see only what they have to gain from the pearl, but Juana can see also what they will lose, and she wisely prefers to protect what she has rather than sacrifice it all for a dream. This shows that Juana serves an important function in the novel—she counterbalances Kino’s enthusiasm and reminds the reader that Kino’s desire to make money is dangerous.
Juana also symbolizes the family’s domestic happiness; the scene in which Kino beats her for trying to cast off the pearl thus represents Kino’s tragic break from the family he longs to support.
The Doctor
Though he does not figure largely in the novella’s plot, the doctor is an important character in The Pearl because he represents the colonial attitudes that oppress Kino’s people. The doctor symbolizes and embodies the colonists’ arrogance, greed, and condescension toward the natives, whom the colonists do not even try to understand. Like the other colonists, the doctor has no interest in Kino’s people. He has come only to make money, and his greed distorts his human values. As a physician, the doctor is duty-bound to act to save human life, but ironically, when confronted with someone whom he considers weaker and poorer than him, the doctor feels no such duty. His cold-heartedly refuses to treat Coyotito for the scorpion sting because Kino lacks the money to pay him thus shows he is dishonest and greedy. As his interior monologue in Chapter 1 shows, the doctor is obsessed with European society, and European cultural values grip his mind so deeply that he doesn’t even realize how ignorant he is of Kino and Kino’s people.
