The Pearl by John Steinbeck (Summary Report)

1. Vincent D. Deocampo
III-A BSITE
World Literature

2. Author
 John Steinbeck
Type of work
 Novella
Genre
 Parable, Allegory

3. Time and Place written
 1944-1945, California, USA
First Publication
 1945 (in serial form) “The Pearl of the World”
 1947 (in book form)
Narrator
 describes the inner thoughts and feelings of
various characters

4. Point of View
 third-person, omniscient narration
 provides analysis and commentary on the
story
Tone
 narrator tells Kino’s story to teach a moral
lesson

5. Tense
 Past
Setting (Time)
 Unclear, possibly late nineteenth or early
twentieth century
Setting (Place)
 A Mexican coastal village called La Paz,
probably on the Baja Peninsula

6.  Greed as a destructive force
 The roles of fate and agency in shaping
human life
 Colonial society’s oppression of
native cultures

7.  Nature imagery
 Kino’s songs

8.  The pearl
 The scorpion
 Kino’s canoe