English 10/2
10/8/95
The Curse of the
Oyster
In The Pearl, by John Steinbech, evil
transforms certain humble citizens into envious savages. Evil was exhibited by the doctor who refused
to treat Coyotito because his parents had no money. When the doctor heard of Kino and Juana's
fortune in finding "the pearl of the world" (722), he boasted that
they were patients of his while thinking of a better life for himself in Paris. Coyotito was healed when the
doctor finally
came to their straw hut. He deceived
Kino by giving the baby a white powder that made him go into convulsions. An hour later he came and gave Coyotito the
remedy and immediately wanted to know when he was getting paid. The evil in the pearl had reached the heart
of the doctor. The pearl's evil did not
restrict itself to infecting Kino's peers; it also affected Kino himself. He wanted to sell the pearl and use the money
to better his family's standard of living.
He had dreams and goals that all depended on the pearl. When Juana wanted to destroy the pearl, Kino
beat her unmercifully:
He struck her in the face and she fell
among the boulders, and he kicked her in the side...He hissed at her
like a snake and she stared at him with wide unfrightened eyes, like a sheep
before a butcher. (742)
Juana saw through
the outer beauty of the pearl and knew it would destroy them, but Kino's vision
was blurred by the possible prosperity the pearl brought. The malignant evil then spread to a secret
cult known only as the trackers. This
corrupt band of ruffians attacked and destroyed Kino's life. The very night that the trackers learned of
Kino's pearl, they tried to steal it.
The next night, Kino was attacked twice, which resulted in Kino
committing murder. After the final
struggle of the night, Juana went back to their home to find more baneful members of the heartless cult
rampaging through their belongings to find the pearl. The end result was Kino and Juana's house
going up in flames. The trackers then committed
the cardinal sin, they destroyed Kino's canoe:
This was an evil beyond thinking. The killing of a man was not so evil as the
killing of a boat. For a boat does not
have sons, and a boat cannot
protect itself, and a wounded boat
does not heal. (744)
The trackers
annihilated the most important material possession that any citizen of the
community owned, "...for a man with
a boat can guarantee a woman that she will eat something. It was the bulwark against starvation"
(717). The evil invaded Kino's life and
everyone who knew of it.
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