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'Wealth and money cannot afford happiness' citing evidence from the Pearl by John Steinbeck, Discuss

'Wealth and money cannot afford happiness' citing evidence from the Pearl by John Steinbeck, Discuss.

OR

John Steinbeck: The Pearl

Wealth and money cannot afford happiness. With illustrations from John Steinbeck’s The Pearl, validate this statement.

Answers


Peter
Too much wealth satisfies individual’s heart desires but at times can bring worst out of him or her. The pearl is a novel written by John Steinbeck and examines a man’s own destruction through greed. In this novel, hope and evil consume Kino and the entire city of La Paz immediately information goes around that Kino found the pearl of the world. As asserted by Forman, greed, culture, anger, happiness, luck, death, mystery and evil are all major aspects in this book.
The story unfolds when Juan and Kino’s baby, Coyotito, is bitten by a scorpion. The doctor refuses to treat Coyotito as he knew that the Coyotito’s parents were poor and could not afford to pay for their son’s treatment. Kino discovers that he has to get something valuable to pay for his son’s treatment. While oystering, he gets a huge pearl. Hearing of the great find by Kino, the doctor decides to treat Coyotito with hopes of getting the pearl. However, Kino becomes avaricious and decides to sell the pearl.
Conversely, Juana believes that the great find by her husband is evil and decides to detach herself form it. Kino decides to vend the pearl for fifty thousand pesos; nonetheless, the highest bid was only fifteen hundred pesos. He makes his way to the city to get a higher offer. Unfortunately, the pearl only brings to him unhappiness. On his way to city, Kino is attacked by evil men who attempt to take away the pearl. Being unsuccessful, the evil men destroy Kino’s canoe and as well as the house.
Regrettably, Kino begins to understand that money cannot afford happiness, but it was too late. He decides to hide his kin. While hiding his family, Kino realizes that he is being followed by the evil men, and murder one of the evil men. Whilst attempting to kill the remaining evil men around their hiding place, Coyotito, Kino’s son was shot by the attackers and dead instantly. Kino and his wife goes home without their son and decides to throw the pearl back to the sea.
In summary, the novel attempts to elucidate that wealth and money cannot afford happiness. Kino gets the pearl and believes to have all reasons live a happy life, but he ends up living a miserable life. Therefore, people should always be contented with what have and appreciate the importance of everything in their lives.


OR

Introduction

Wealth and money cannot guarantee happiness. One may be rich but that does not mean he is happy. Juana and Kino have the pearl that if sold will earn them a lot of money thus liberating them from poverty. The Pearl in this case signifies wealth. This new found treasure however robs them of the happiness they had when they were poor.



Body

The pearl brings opportunists to Kino and Juana’s doorstep. They are only interested in Kino’s new found wealth. The priest, the shopkeeper, the doctor, the beggars outside the church and the pearl buyers scheme to benefit from the rare find.

The Pearl turns Kino’s friends into enemies, they are jealous of Kino. Kino believes his friends will protect him from the evils that might befall him from the pearl but their jealousy is too great that they turn against Kino and his family.

The Pearl turns Juana and Kino against each other. The evil power of the Pearl is strong enough to inspire violence between them. Juana and Kino are so close to one another that conversation isn’t even needed and yet the pearl is able to divide them. It has brought injury and danger and now it pulls Juana and Kino away from each other.

Kino and Juana suffer constant attacks because of the pearl. People are so anxious to get their hands on this jewel that they attackhim, ransack his house leaving Kino’s family in constant fear.


The pearl also brings death to Kino and his family. Coyotito is killed because of the pearl.

Conclusion

From the above illustrations it is clear that wealth does not bring happiness, and instead has the potential to wreak havoc in the lives of those who posses it.
Musyoxx answered the question on February 28, 2018 at 15:54

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