This is highlighted right here through examining the character traits of both Juana and Kino in order to show how Kino, the protagonist, does pale in comparison to Juana, whom the author endows with unique wisdom, common sense and resourcefulness juxtaposed to the foolishness, incompetence and acquiescence of Kino.

Nevertheless, the aim of the present article is to show that Steinbeck defies his usual stereotypical portrayal of women and female roles and takes a lenient, if not sympathetic, stance on women in his novella The Pearl, which can be interpreted as an exception in the Steinbeck canon.

This is the reason why Steinbeck has often been stigmatised by a number of critics as a misogynist. His women characters are always drawn as stereotypically far too inferior to men, something that is illustrated through the subordinate, sometimes scandalous, roles assigned to them. In the summers during his youth, Steinbeck worked on nearby ranches as a hired hand.The representation of female characters in the fiction of John Steinbeck has become a topic of scholarly interest as early as his first novel Cup of Gold. His mother Olive was a school teacher and helped inspire her son's passion for reading. His father John served as the county treasurer in Salinas. was born in Salinas, California, on February 27, 1902. Kino does not count, however, on the power of the pearl to inspire the worst as well as the best in human nature. He will be able to have enough money to cure his son Coyotito from the poison of a scorpion's bite, to marry Coyotito's mother, and to provide his son with an education, which he knows will help him to escape the bonds of the oppression under which his people suffer. Steinbeck changed the boy into the adult Kino, and gave him a family, and created a compelling story of oppression, rebellion, and greed.Īfter Kino finds the largest and most beautiful pearl he has ever seen, he is convinced that it will ensure him and his family a promising future.

The story so struck his imagination that he created his own version of it in his celebrated novella The Pearl. Soon, however, so many people tried to take the pearl from him that he threw it back into the sea. In The Log from The Sea of CortezSteinbeck writes that he heard a story about a Mexican boy finding a huge pearl and thinking that he would never have to work again.

Steinbecks the pearl