Greed as a Destructive Force
As Kino seeks to gain wealth and status through the pearl, he transforms from a happy, contented father to a savage criminal, demonstrating the way ambition and greed destroy innocence. Kino’s desire to acquire wealth changes the pearl’s natural beauty and good luck, transforming it from a symbol of hope to a symbol of human destruction. Furthermore, Kino’s greed leads him to behave violently toward his wife; it also leads to his son’s death and ultimately to Kino’s detachment from his cultural tradition and his society. Kino’s people seem poised for a similar destruction, as the materialism inherent in colonial capitalism implants a love of profit into the simple piety of the native people.
The Roles of Fate and Human Action in Shaping Future
The Pearl portrays two contrasting forces that shape human life and determine individual destiny. The novel shows a world in which humans decide their own future. They provide for themselves, follow their own desires, and make their own plans. At the same time, forces beyond human control, such as chance, accident, and the gods, can sweep in at any moment and, for good or ill, completely change the course of an individual’s life. Fate is best represented in the novel by the open sea where pearl divers dive beneath the waves hoping for God blessings.
Kino and Juana’s lives change drastically the moment the scorpion, a symbol of evil fate, bites their child. Their lives then change drastically again the moment Kino finds the pearl, a symbol of good fate. Nevertheless, it is not fate but human action, in the form of greed, ambition, and violence, that facilitates the novel’s disastrous final outcome, as Kino’s greed and the greed of others lead to a series of conflicts over the pearl. Kino finds himself caught between the forces of fate and the forces of human society, between the destiny handed him by fate and the destiny he seeks to create himself.
Colonial Society’s Oppression of Native Cultures
The doctor who refuses to save Coyotito’s life at the beginning of the novel because Kino lacks the money to pay him represents colonial arrogance and oppression. Arrogant and condescending, the doctor displays an appallingly limited and self-centered mind-set that is made frightening by his unshakable belief in his own cultural superiority over Kino, and by the power that he holds to save or destroy lives. Steinbeck implicitly accuses the doctor’s entire colonial society of such destructive arrogance, greed, and ambition. The European colonizers that govern Kino and the native people are shown to bring about the destruction of the native society’s innocence, piety, and purity.
