Setting
The town where Juana and Kino live.
What is La Paz?
A fisherman who falls in love with a great pearl.
Who is Kino?
"This pearl has become my soul. If I give it up I shall lose my soul."
Who is Kino?
"Out in the estuary, a tight woven school of small fishes glittered and broke water to escape a school of great fishes that drove in to eat them."
What is foreshadowing?
The author's purpose for including the metaphor: "Kino wondered often at the iron in his patient, fragile wife" (Steinbeck 7).
What is showing Kino's respect for Juana's strength?
What is the Sea of Cortez?
Kino's wife
Who is Juana?
"Sometimes, my friend, the scorpion sting has a curious effect. There will be an apparent improvement, and then without warning pouf!
Who is the Doctor?
The town is like a "colonial animal."
What is a simile?
The author's purpose for including the following historical information: "This was the bed that had raised the King of Spain to be a great power in Europe in past years, had helped to pay for his wars, and had decorated the churches for his soul's sake" (16).
What is to emphasize the way the Spanish benefitted from the overfishing of the Sea of Cortez's pearl bed?
Type of dwelling in which Kino and Juana live.
What is a brush hut?
The baby of Kino and Juana
Who is Coyotito?
"This pearl is like a sin. It will destroy us. Throw it away, Kino. Let us break it between stones. Let us bury it and forget the place."
Who is Juana?
"...an explosion of fire as the sun rose..."(Steinbeck 3).
What is hyperbole?
Steinbeck compares La Paz to this.
What is a colonial animal?
A wicked man who wants to return to Paris and who believes the natives mexicans are no better than animals.
Who is the Doctor
"Sometimes, my friend, the scorpion sting has a curious effect. There will be an apparent improvement, and then without warning pouf!"
Who is the doctor?
"...the restless wind with the smell of storm on its breath...".
What is personification?
The author's purpose for including these similes: "...the black distillate was like the scorpion, or like hunger in the smell of food, or like loneliness when love is withheld" (23).
What is to emphasize the evil of the greed that was growing in the town of LaPaz?
Historical time period and conditions of native Mexicans in The Pearl.
What are the early 1900's and Spanish oppression?
Kino's brother and sister-in-law
Who are Juan Tomas and Apolonia?
"The killing of a man was not so evil as the killing of a boat."
Who is the omniscient narrator?
"The poison sacs of the town began to manufacture venom and the town swelled and puffed with the pressure of it."
What is a metaphor?
The author's purpose for this personification of the sun: "The sun...drew moisture from the estuary and from the Gulf and hung it in shimmering scarves in the air so that it vibrated and vision was insubstantial" (42-43).
What is to reveal the way that nature was interfering with the people's ability to see things clearly?