Fundamentals
The setting of The Pearl
What is La Paz, likely sometime in the late nineteenth or early twentieth centuries.
Reflecting a common stereotype against indigenous peoples, Steinbeck repeatedly compares the indigenous trackers to this animal?
What are dogs?
Juana prepares one of these to treat Coyotito.
What is a poultice?
The inciting incident of The Pearl.
What is finding the pearl?
What is Nayarit?
The point of view used in The Pearl.
What is third person omniscient?
Who are Juana and Apolonia.
This is the unique skill that the first pearl buyer has.
What is legerdemain?
The climax of the Pearl
What is the attack at the spring?
What is one?
The special term for stories like The Pearl or The Little Prince based on their lengths.
What is a novella?
Reflecting a common stereotype of indigenous Mexicans, Steinbeck claims that all of them have learned a 'slight slitting of their eyes' in response to this event / process.
What is the subjugation attending the Spanish conquest and colonization of Central America?
This is the verb used to describe the evil gathering around Kino from the town, comparing it to settled blood.
What is coagulate?
p. 50, "He felt the evil coagulating about him, and he was helpless to protect himself."
The falling action of The Pearl.
What is Kino and Juana walking back to town, throwing the pearl into the sea.
These knew all the secrets in La Paz.
Who are the beggars?
The recipient of the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature.
Who is John Steinbeck.
not The Pearl!
A common stereotype against indigenous Mexicans is that they are irrational and superstitious. Steinbeck claims this is partly the result of what atmospheric phenomenon in the Gulf of California?
The high humidity in the air distorts clear vision.
The place where a freshwater river and the ocean meet.
What is an estuary?
The rising action of The Pearl explores these two conflicts.
What is Kino vs. Society and Kino vs. Juana?
This is the brand of rifle Kino wanted to buy.
What is a Winchester / Winchester Carbine?
Mexico was colonized by this country, creating racial and ethnic tensions evident in The Pearl.
Reflecting a common stereotype of indigenous peoples, Steinbeck repeatedly uses this aspect of Kino to suggest indigenous peoples are both sensitive to the spiritual world, passively inherit knowledge from their culture, and that their culture is dying in the modern world.
What are the songs in Kino's head?
This is a fermented drink that Kino and Juana frequently drink.
What is pulque?
Chapter 3 ends with this plot device, captured in the lines, "And they began this day with hope".
What is foreshadowing?
Coyotito wears these special garments on the day they try to sell the pearl.
What is baptism or baptismal clothes?