Steinbeck-+The+Pearl

THE PEARL by John Steinbeck __About the Author:__ - Born 2/27/190 - Authored 27 books - Was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962 - Died 12/20/1968 - Other famous novels by John Steinbeck: -//Of Mice and Men// -//The Grapes of Wrath// -//East of Eden// -More about Steinbeck: []

check out Mr. Kilby's ComicLife piece for Steinbeck: [|Page_1.JPG] [|Page_2.JPG] // __About the Novel:__ - Published in 1947 // - "This pearl has become my soul... If I give it up, I shall lose my soul." //- Themes: greed, exploitation, and the importance of family//

// __Reviews of__ //The Pearl//:// "Most people born and raised in America cannot even imagine the depths of poverty that most of the rest of the world are forced to live with. This story illuminates this fact, as we enter the world of Kino, a pearl diver and occasional fisherman, his wife Juana, and their baby son, Coyotito. Steinbeck's prose for this book matches his characters and situation very well, a very minimalist sentence structure and set of speech patterns. As a parable, the story has a strong moralistic point, but Steinbeck does not overdrive his thematic message, but lets his story speak for itself. One of Steinbeck's great strengths was his ability to capture on paper the characters he saw around him, and this book is a showcase for that talent. The characters of Kino and Juana are exquisitely drawn, real people you can relateto even though their lifestyles may be very far from your own."

"The Pearl //might be called the lottery if it was written today. The ticket that vaults a person from the troubles of day-to-day life, and is thought to leave them "set for life" all too often is a quick financial ride up and a crash back down. Sudden wealth, when thrust upon a person, changes the person and everyone around them. All their reference points, their friends, and all that their lives have not prepared them for, surround, threaten, and many times destroy them."

__Questions to Think About While Reading...__ - How does Steinbeck use symbolism? (and what does the pearl symbolize for the characters in the story?) - How does Steinbeck use specific word choices to hint at what is about to happen in the story? - What is Steinbeck trying to tell his readers about greed and human nature? - At the very beginning, Steinbeck tells us that each reader may take his/her own message away from// The Pearl//. What message do you take away?

__Animated version of__ //The Pearl//: []

[|National Steinbeck Center in Salinas, California]

__[|John Steinbeck's House (now a restaurant)]__

media type="file" key="Steinbeck_and_the_Human_Condition_of_the_1930s.mov" width="300" height="300"View this video clip to learn more about John Steinbeck and the human condition!


 * The Human Condition: **
 * **The positive and negative aspects of existence as a human being ** ||
 * Often, this involves the way in which human beings exist socially and culturally- in other words, how they live on a day to day basis! **

Listening to the last two chapters of __The Pearl__!media type="file" key="chapter 5.wma" width="300" height="45" [|Chapter One.wma]