The Pearl Characters Pen Portrait

Pen Portraits-The Pearl

Juana-
Juana is a very young lady and she has just had her first child. In the starting of the book, she is very calm and does not speak much. Towards the end of the book she is a lot more aggressive and speaks more than she used to. Her attitude changes and she stays by Kino whatever happens. An example is when Kino has killed a man; she helps him hide the dead body instead of telling anyone of the crime. Steinbeck also writes that when she carries out her way of curing Coyotito by putting the poultice on his sting, she does not have any faith in her technique and thinks that they should go to the doctor. This is the proof that tells us that she has a strong belief in authority. At the end of the book, she becomes very stubborn and this stubbornness leads to her son’s death. When Kino tells Juana that she should hide with Coyotito to stay safe, she says no three times without any hesitation or weakness. This is an example of her stubbornness. If she would have hidden with Coyotito, the consequences could have differed.
My opinion of Kino is that she was a very strong character and had a very large roll to play in this book. Her roll was not only protecting Coyotito, but she was also Kino’s largest support.

Kino-
Kino is a young man who thinks he will achieve everything after he gets the pearl. He has too many ambitions such as sending his son to school, getting married, and having a rifle.
He tells his ambitions to all the villagers and the priest becomes even greedier after hearing what he can do with just a Pearl. Although the priest cannot do anything wrong as he is a religious man, the doctor can. He also sets himself some ambitions such as drinking wine in a rich restaurant. But to achieve his ambitions he must have the pearl. He tries to seal it but is not successful. Kino knows that on the way to achieving his ambitions he will have to face evil but he is too greedy and the greed makes him blind. All he can see are his ambitions. His foolishness is also a reason of his son’s death. If he would have sold it for 1500 pesos than his sons death could have been avoided, but as I have written, greed can make a person blind.
In my opinion, Kino was trapped by the pearl and he can do nothing to get rescue himself from the pearls invisible trap. It is not every day that a man gets lucky. And when Kino gets lucky, he wants to make too much from the luck and this teaches him a lesson; “you should always be happy with what you have”.

Juan Tomas-
Juan Tomas is Kino’s bigger brother and his wife is Apolonia. Juan Tomas warns Kino about the consequences of what the pearl could do. Kino does not listen to his brother and very unfortunate consequences follow. For example, Juan Tomas says ‘there is a devil in this pearl’ but Kino knows this but instead of throwing it away, he keeps it as a hope, he keeps it as his soul. When Kino kills a man in self-defense, Juan Tomas and Apolonia hide Kino’s family. This shows us that Juan Tomas’ nature is very helpful although he knows that he is helping a criminal who could be sent to jail or even executed, he remembers that he is Kino’s brother and should always stay as a support for him and his family From my opinion, He is a very humble man and seems happy with his post in his life; yet, he understands Kino and why he wants to earn too much from the pearl. Juan Tomas, although he has a very short part to play, it is still a very important one.