John Steinbeck's The Pearl Through the Prism of New Formalism

Using the New Formalism as a lens to analyze Pearls, the reader can see that Steinbeck uses images, symbols and music to develop a theme according to which luck can lead people with good intentions to the path of evil and negative. In modern society, people often experience radical changes when faced with luck.

Even a very principled person who favors honesty and good values may be at risk as a result of good luck and good luck. In John Steinbeck’s novel The Pearl, the author writes about a poor Mexican pearl diver named Kino, who is fascinated by the possible condition that his big pearl can bring. Through this lens, the author tries to show the reader that it is important to prevent materialism from affecting their values and integrity. In John Steinbeck's Pearl, racism is presented throughout the entire novel. In this book, racism seems to be the biggest thing that keeps the main characters from their luck. Because of this racism, Kino and Juan are stuck in this low-income society and cannot escape. Everyone is trying to keep them in this social class and prevent them from being free. At first it begins at the beginning, when Scorpion stings Juanita. Juana and Kino are doing everything possible to save him and eventually take him to a doctor. Since they lived in this social class, it was very rare to visit a doctor. Arriving at the doctor, the assistants say that there is no doctor. The doctor turns them away only because they have no money, and this is the only important thing in this life. It also allows one to free oneself from racial scope, as if the lower social class were not just poor, but smaller than man. In this social class, first of all Indians, if they are fatally ill, they do not have the opportunity to see a doctor because they have no money. The doctor also calls himself not a veterinarian during treatment.

Further in the book, after Kino finds the pearl, the Doctor surprises them at home. He deceives them to make their child sicker. He played them because he knew that they did not receive the same education as rich white people. Then he returns to save the child from the medicine he gave him. After that, the doctor continues to lie, knowing that Kino and Yaouana know nothing better. He knew that they would fall in love with it, because they never was a meeting with the doctor, like most people in their community. The doctor concludes that Kino and Juana are in debt to him, hoping that the pearl will pay off. Later in the novel, we again see racism, when buyers of Pearls are trying the lowlands of Kino. They see him as less and therefore try to give him less.

Steinbeck repeatedly uses repetitive images throughout the Pearl to help convey the theme of how luck can lead to negativity and evil. On the first night, when Kino took possession of the pearl, he seemed to be worried about what was about to happen. Then, suddenly, an intruder entered the house, and “Kino held his breath to listen, and he knew that all the dark things in his house also held their breath to listen. Kino may have thought he imagined a sound. But Juana's hand crept up to him with a warning, and then the sound came again! A whisper on dry ground and a scratch on fingers on the ground. Darkness universally symbolizes evil and the enemy. It seems that Kino knows that something bad can happen because of how the attacker is described as a “dark thing”. Potential value the pearl lured the enemy into the house of Kino. The next day, Kino and his brother, Juan Thomas, went to sell the pearl of Kino. The narrator claims that “Kino stared into the darkness of the small office because his eyes were clamped from the outside view.

But the buyer's eyes became as steady, cruel and unblinking as the eyes of a hawk, and the rest of his face smiled in greeting ” Although the face of the pearl buyer seemed friendly and hospitable, in the depths of his eyes the darkness and evil of the enemy are transmitted. The pearl shopper's shop is also darker inside than outside, as it is described as dim. Cinema knows that pearl buyers may try to cheat and use it to their advantage. The negative power of the pearl brought Kino to evil buyers.

Early in the morning, Kino catches Juan going to the ocean with a pearl. Kino hits Juana and takes the pearl from her before she can throw her into the ocean. Then he meets more people who are after a magnificent pearl. Steinbeck writes: “He heard a rush, pulled out a knife and rushed to one dark figure, felt his knife go home, and then he was lifted to his knees and piled to the ground again. Greedy fingers passed over his clothes, insane figures searched him, and the pearl, knocked out of his hand, winked after a stone on the path. The enemy was attracted to a pearl, a pearl that was supposed to bring good fortune to Kino and his family, but in fact brought only evil and darkness. Dark figures symbolize enemies who chased Kino for a pearl. This is how Steinbeck uses imagery to illustrate a topic that luck can bring well-intentioned people to the path of evil and negativity.

Steinbeck continues to develop the theme that luck can inadvertently bring evil and negative, using symbolic values in many places in history. When Kino and his family return to their modest shrubs, finding a magnificent pearl. In the world of Cinema begins to imagine what he is going to use the wealth of pearls. Kino believes that all his hopes and dreams can now become a reality thanks to his new wealth. The narrator claims