the pearl written essays

Introduction to The Pearl

Summary of the pearl, major themes in the pearl, major characters in the pearl, writing style of the pearl‎, analysis of literary devices in the pearl, related posts:, post navigation.

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Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue-Chapter 2

Chapters 3-4

Chapters 5-6

Character Analysis

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Discussion Questions

Consider the priest and the doctor as foil characters. How do their characteristics and roles overlap, and how do they differ?

The narrator says that The Pearl is a parable, which is a simple story that teaches a moral or lesson. What morals or lessons might Kino’s people derive from the story? Do those morals and lessons differ from the ones Steinbeck intends readers to take from it?

Consider dialogue within The Pearl . Though Kino and his people speak an unidentified “old language,” the dialogue is recorded in English. What tone and style does Steinbeck adopt for the dialogue, and how does it influence your perception of the characters and events?

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The Pearl John Steinbeck

The Pearl literature essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of The Pearl.

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The Pearl Essays

The pearl versus the secret river esther brennan 12th grade.

The Pearl , by John Steinbeck and The Secret River, by Kate Grenville both explore issues surrounding racism and classism. However, whilst The Pearl places a heavy emphasis on classism due to racism, The Secret River discusses racism and the...

The Pearl: Symbolism Analysis Jordan H. Barton 10th Grade

God, Glory, and Gold. These are the three G’s of European colonization, and the same three G’s that would lead to the destruction of entire civilizations of native people and their forced submission to European ethnic and socioeconomic forces for...

A Dollar Cannot Buy a Smile: Riches vs. Happiness in 'The Pearl' Benjamin Paul Wilson 8th Grade

What is greed? Should family be sacrificed in return of money? Does greed ruin a person? These are all questions that are answered in the book, The Pearl, by John Steinbeck. In The Pearl, a simple man named Kino, and his wife Juana, risk their...

Women as a Voice of Reason in John Steinbeck’s “The Pearl” Anonymous 12th Grade

John Steinbeck’s The Pearl is set in a largely patriarchal society, that is rather gorged and brimming with irrational and impulsive people, it is ambrosial to have individuals who embody impeccable judgments and propose practical answers,...

An Analysis of Imagery and Mood in John Steinbeck’s “The Pearl” Anonymous 12th Grade

John Steinbeck, in The Pearl, employs creative use of language and style, carefully creating a story that registers vividly in the mind of the reader. Through his artistic and slightly varied, cautious choice of words, Steinbeck brings into...

The Concept of Irony In John Steinbeck’s “The Pearl” Anonymous 12th Grade

The Pearl by John Steinbeck presents accounts that, when engaged in the milieu, may necessarily mean a complete contrapositive of the depicted situation. In The Pearl , Steinbeck uses the concept of irony to dissimulate benightedness and...

Greed in Margaret Ogola’s The River and The Source and John Steinbeck’s The Pearl: A Comparative Analysis Anonymous 12th Grade

Set in entirely different parts of the world, the two novels The River and the Source and The Pearl both explore the theme of greed in conceptual terms. John Steinbeck and Margaret Ogola not only bring into perspective the implications of...

Pearls in the Castle: Comparing Materialism and Gender in Fiction by Steinbeck and Jackson Yinkai Liu 8th Grade

How would you define happiness? Would you be content if you one day win the top prize in the lottery, find the world’s most precious diamond, or watch your product go viral? Fortune could allow you to buy luxury products and have a decent place to...

Themes and Analysis

By john steinbeck.

'The Pearl' by John Steinbeck is a short novel beautifully told in oratory style and laced with many lessons for readers and topics for critics.

Article written by Israel Njoku

Degree in M.C.M with focus on Literature from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

‘ The Pearl ‘ by John Steinbeck explores themes like greed and exploitation to give insight into ethical issues facing humanity in the context of ethnic and economic divisions. It also has symbols that further drive the themes of the story and is written with a lyrical flow that makes it a delight to readers .

Some of the themes in ‘ The Pearl ‘ by John Steinbeck are greed, exploitation, and fate. And these are discussed here.

The discovery of the pearl triggered greed in Kino. He used to be a contented family man, totally loving of his wife Juana and his son Coyotito and would do anything to protect and provide for them. But as he discovers the pearl, it rouses a desire in him for money and status. All of a sudden, everything becomes subverted to this new-found desire for money and status, including his family’s safety.

This driving greed almost magically transmutes him into a brute and a criminal, capable of manslaughter. As a result, he becomes a wanted man and is on the run for his life, dragging his family along, whose prior simple and quiet life he had upset by his implacable ambition and greed. It is also on account of the pearl that he has the course to abuse his wife for the first time. And all because his wife had seen the destructive potential of the pearl and attempted to get rid of it so that she could have her once peaceful and quiet life back.

In a way, it is not so much that the pearl is innately a destructive influence. Rather, it is Kino’s greed that perverts what might easily have been the natural salutary utility of the pearl, corrupting it into something ugly and malevolent. He had the opportunity to exchange the pearl for a modest price and continue his simple life with his wife, but his ambition was beyond what the buyers offered. In the upshot, he loses his only son and is constrained to get rid of the pearl as his wife had earlier suggested.

We also see greed in other characters , like the doctor and the priest, who suddenly begin to give Kino attention because of what they stand to gain from the acquisition of the pearl.

Another theme that runs through the novella is the working of fate in the affairs of humans. In the story, the human beings are seen to be initially taking charge of their own lives and destiny, and negotiating their daily survival and sustenance as best they can. But on the other hand, some other equally key aspects of their lives are not strictly within their power to control.

Take the sea, for example. The lowly pearl divers and fishermen depend solely on the sea to be able to eke out their daily living and be able to provide for their families. But what each passing day will bring and whether the sea will yield them anything worthwhile for all their striving and effort is entirely out of the purview of their power to control.

It may happen that after a long day of strenuous striving, the sea yields nothing, or it may yield something utterly not commensurate to the effort that one had invested. And even when fate seems to be favourable and yields a fortune, as in Kino’s finding a huge pearl, there is still no guarantee that this fortune will not be, in turn, fated to ruin the life of the character who has found it in other unforeseen ways.

Exploitation

The theme of oppression and exploitation is the other key theme in the story. This manifests in several ways, for example, in the career of the doctor. His relationship with Kino and his kind is purely exploitative and predatory. It is for this reason that he refuses to treat Coyotito even though he can see that the poor child is in danger of death from a scorpion’s venom. And all because Kino cannot afford to pay for the medical treatment the boy so urgently requires. But the moment Kino finds the pearl, the doctor quickly switches and declares the sick boy his patient, and visits Kino’s brush house himself to treat him.

However, his real interest is not really in treating the boy but in the possibility of getting a share of the money that Kino’s pearl promises to bring. The same thing applies to the priest as well as the pearl dealers and all the attackers who try to steal the pearl from Kino.

Analysis of Key Moments

• Kino enjoys a peaceful morning with the monotonous routine of his family as his wife Juana prepares breakfast and his child Coyotito rocks in his crib. But the peaceful morning is disrupted as a spider stings Coyotito.
• Juana tries to suck the venom from the scorpion sting as neighbours gather around them while Kino crushes the Scorpion in rage.
• Juana decides that they must take Coyotito to the doctor, and all the neighbours and beggars in the town join them as they walk to the doctor’s house. But on getting there, the doctor refuses to treat Coyotito because Kino does not have any money to pay him.
• Kino and his family return home, and as they take their boat out to hunt for pearls, Juana gets some medicinal seaweed and places it on Coyotito’s wound while she prays that Kino would find a pearl that would make them rich enough to afford the doctor’s services.
• Kino’s venture yields a big beautiful pearl, and they are happy. The news of Kino’s pearl travel across town, neighbours troop in to visit him, and he shares his grand plans about what he will do with the fortune he makes from the pearl.
• The doctor, who had hitherto refused to treat Coyotito, visits Kino’s home and offers his services without any prompting from Kino. Even the priest visits Kino and urges them to bring gifts of thanks to the church.
• Kino’s home is attacked by a thief that night, but Kino, in his alertness, strikes the thief with his knife, and the thief flees.
• The next morning, Kino goes to sell the pearl, but the pearl dealers offer him a price that is far less than what it is worth. Sensing that he is being cheated, Kino refuses to sell the pearl and returns home with it.
• That night, Juana tries to throw the pearl back into the sea because she believes it will bring an evil that will destroy their family. But Kino gets to her before she completes the task and beats her viciously.
• Another set of thieves attacked Kino’s home again. Kino kills one of them and tries to escape with his family, but they realize that their boat has been destroyed. The thieves set Kino’s home ablaze, and Kino hides with his family at his brother’s house.
• At night, Kino flees with his family with hopes of getting to the capital, selling the pearl at a profitable rate, and beginning a new life.
• But enemies follow Kino’s tracks and try to hunt him down. The trackers set up camp at some point, and Kino decides to attack them. But before Kino can strike, Coyotito cries in the distance, and the trackers shoot at him thinking it is a Coyote.
• Kino kills the trackers but is left with his wailing wife and his dead child.
• Defeated, Kino and Juana, return to their small town, and Kino casts the pearl back into the ocean.

Style, Tone, and Figurative Language            

John Steinbeck’s style of writing in ‘The Pearl’ is rather oratorical. That is to say that the general rhythm of the narrative makes it sound as if the story is being told orally. This is probably not surprising since, as has been observed, the story is modelled after an ancient Mexican parable, and a parable originally is a short didactic tale passed down by word of mouth from one generation to another. It is this oral feature that the novella imbibes. As a result, its style is conversational, the flow repetitious with a certain monotony of rhythm, giving the general aura of a tale being told around a campfire.

One way in which this writing style is observed is in the frequent occurrence of the conjunction ‘and’ in the course of the narration. For example: ‘Kino held the great pearl in his hand, and it was warm and alive . . .’ ‘Kino looked into his pearl, and Juana cast her eyelashes down…’ and so on. In this way, the author cuts down on the use of the gerund form, colons, and lengthy sentences in general, thereby retaining the ordinary repetitive style of a parable. Also, the relatively short length of the novella rebounds to the general oral bent of the narrative. But it is altogether a simple and unambiguous style.

The tone is moralistic as there is that overriding sense of a repudiation of greed and all the ills that come with it by the narrative voice. And by that same token, a reader is sucked into that same mood whereby he perceives the unfolding sequence from the narrator’s general point of view. The tone also gets despondent, particularly when it dawns on the characters that all the pearl can ever breed is evil, strife, envy, and avarice of murderous dimensions. It is probably in such a state of mind that Juana implores Kino to get rid of the pearl.

One of the dominant figurative languages in the novella includes personification. For example, the narrator uses the expression ‘the wind cried’ at one point, thereby infusing the wind, which is ordinarily a non-sentient entity with a capacity for feeling and emotiveness.

Imagery is another figurative language that features in the novella. This is seen, for example, in the manner in which the narrator captures Kino’s reaction when he is roused from sleep to discover that his wife Juana is sneaking out of their brush house with an end to going to the sea to get rid of the pearl since he has refused her plea to get rid of it. This is how it reads:

And rage surged in Kino. He rolled up to his feet and followed her as silently as she had gone, and he could hear her quick footsteps going toward the shore. Quietly he tracked her, and his brain was red with anger. Chapter V, pp 31

In the quote above , In one breath, the reader perceives Kino’s anger as a rage surging and a substance that gives a certain touch of redness to his brain.

Analysis of Symbols

The pearl itself is easily the single important symbol in the novella. It is difficult to delimit its meaning and significance to just one thing only. When it is first discovered by Kino, it is clearly considered to be a fortune. To that extent, therefore, it is a representation of divine providence in the life of Kino and his family. And going by the order of the incidents in the novella, it, in a way, also represents a divine compensation to Kino for the misfortune of the scorpion sting which had befallen his child, Coyotito, prior to the discovery of the pearl.

But on the other hand, the pearl becomes a corrupting influence, infecting the owner, as well as all the other people who hope to gain something out of it, with murderous greed. Thus, it is as much a symbol of good fortune as it is a symbol of a fall from a state of innocence to decadence.

The Scorpion

The scorpion in the story is a symbol of arbitrary misfortune and evil. Coyotito is a mere baby when the scorpion stings him, and it is significant that while the scorpion crawls up towards the child, he innocently giggles at it and reaches out to grab it. In other words, the child’s innocence and seeming gesture of cordiality towards the scorpion does not stop it from stinging him and leaving him poisoned with its lethal venom.

That is a veritable image of the relationship between good and evil. It evokes the old problem of what exactly might be the trigger or rationale of evil in the order of things in the first place. Evil seems to be an irruptive phenomenon, without any real reason or motivation, something commonly explored in the tragic sequence in art.

The boat in ‘ The Pearl ‘ symbolizes a cultural essence and a delicate heritage to be preserved. Kino’s boat was passed down from generation to generation until it got to him, and he cared for it with utmost care and pride. The destruction of the boat is seen as a worse evil than the killing of a man because a boat cannot protect itself, and a wounded boat cannot heal.

Why did Juana want to throw away the pearl?

Juana wanted to throw away the pearl because she believed that the pearl had an inherent evil that would upset the peaceful order of their family life and destroy them all.

What is the climax of ‘ The Pearl ‘?

A climax is the highest point of tension in a story. The climax of ‘ The Pearl’ by John Steinbeck is the shooting of Coyotito by the trackers and Kino’s subsequent attack on them.

What does the doctor symbolize in ‘ The Pearl ‘?

In John Steinbeck’s ‘ The Pearl,’ the doctor is both a character and a symbol. The doctor symbolizes, decadence, imperialism, greed, and wickedness. He is also a symbol of the exploitation of the colonialists.

What is the moral of the story of ‘The Pearl’ ?

One of the morals of the story is the dangers of greed. There are also lessons about injustice, luck, and exploitation. However, the author expressly states at the beginning of the narration that it is at the discretion of the reader to draw their own morals from the story.

What does the rifle symbolize in ‘The Pearl’ ?

The rifle symbolizes power in the story. The use of the rifle and the application of the power it symbolizes changes with whoever possesses it. For Kino’s neighbours and kinsmen, they perceive the rifle as a tool of oppression which the colonialists used to subdue them. For Kino, when he began to have grand designs for himself and his family, he began to perceive the rifle as a symbol of protection and luxury.

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About Israel Njoku

Israel loves to delve into rigorous analysis of themes with broader implications. As a passionate book lover and reviewer, Israel aims to contribute meaningful insights into broader discussions.

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John Steinbeck

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The Pearl takes place in a small village on the outskirts of La Paz, California. It begins in the brush house of Kino , Juana , and their baby, Coyotito , a family of Mexican Native Americans. In the midst of Kino and Juana’s morning routine, Coyotito is stung by a scorpion that has fallen into his hanging box.

Aware of how poisonous the scorpion’s sting is, Juana orders that the doctor be gotten and when the doctor refuses to come to them, insists they go to the doctor themselves. Kino, Juana, Coyotito, and their neighbors proceed together to the city. When the servant reports their arrival at his gate, the doctor, lounging indulgently in bed, is insulted by the mere notion that he would “cure insect bites for ‘little Indians’” without compensation. The servant informs Kino that the doctor will not be able to see them and Kino punches the gate, infuriated by the doctor’s evident discrimination.

Kino and Juana set off in their canoe to search for pearls. Kino dives down to the seafloor and finds one oyster lying alone, gleaming from within. Upon returning to the canoe, Kino opens this oyster last and finds within it the most perfect pearl in the world.

News of Kino’s pearl spreads rapidly through the town, inspiring desire and envy in everyone who hears of it. When Juan Tomas asks Kino what he will do as a rich man, he responds that he and Juana will be married in a church, that they will have new clothes, that he will have a rifle, and that his son will receive an education.

The priest visits the brush house to remind Kino and Juana to thank God. Then the doctor, inspired by the news of the pearl, arrives in order to treat the baby. He administers a first treatment and predicts that the poison will strike within the hour. Within the hour, Coyotito indeed becomes ill and the doctor administers a second treatment to cure him. Kino promises to pay the doctor after selling the pearl, which the doctor feigns not to have heard about.

That night, after dark, Kino hears noises in the house and manages to strike a thief looking for the pearl with his knife, but is also struck in return. Juana begs, to no avail, that they get rid of the pearl.

The next day, Kino and Juana, followed by their neighbors, go to visit the pearl dealers . The first dealer Kino visits assesses the pearl at a mere 1000 pesos, declaring it too big and clumsy to be worth anything more, though it is clearly more valuable than he lets on. Kino accuses the dealer of cheating him, so the dealer instructs Kino to ask around for other appraisals, which are even worse than the first. Kino concludes that he’s been cheated and decides to go to the capital for a better estimate.

That night, Kino fights off another attacker. Juana tries to throw the pearl into the ocean, but Kino follows her, rips the pearl away from her, and beats her to the ground. Some minutes later, Juana rises to discover that Kino has been attacked yet again, and, this time, has killed his attacker. Now that Kino is guilty of murder, Kino and Juana truly must leave the town.

As Kino approaches the canoe to prepare for their departure, he sees that someone has made a hole in its bottom. Then, upon seeing that their house is engulfed in flames, the family seeks refuge in Juan Tomas’s house. They flee north at nighttime, pursued by trackers who have followed them from the village.

The family retreats into a cave on a mountainside, under which the trackers come to rest at night. When it’s completely dark, Kino prepares to attack them but, as he is about to, Coyotito lets out a cry, provoking one of the trackers to shoot at what he assumes to be a coyote. Though Kino succeeds in killing the men, Coyotito has already been shot dead.

Juana and Kino, united and beleaguered, walk back to the village side-by-side with Coyotito’s dead body in Juana’s shawl. Kino throws the pearl back into the sea.

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John Steinbeck’s The Pearl Essay

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John Steinbeck’s The Pearl is a novel that was published in 1947 that retells an old Mexican tale. It is a story of a poor Indian pearl diver, named Kino who lived in La Paz with his wife, Juana, and his son Coyotito. At first, the family is seen to be contented with their lifestyle despite the challenges Kino has to face to provide a meal for his family. However, things begin to change when Coyotito is bit by a scorpion, and his parents begin to find ways to treat him.

The only doctor that is capable of treating Coyotito refuses to treat him because Kino is not able to pay for the treatment. In the pursuit for money to treat his son, Kino discovers an enormous pearl that will forever be referred to as “ the pearl of the world ”. This paper explores the greed, and evil portrayed by the indigenous Indians in John Steinbeck’s The Pearl .

As the title of the book suggests, the story is based on the enormous pearl Kino finds, and the events that took place as people tried to hunt Kino for possessing the pearl . From their way of life, it is evident that the Indians living in La Paz lead a poor lifestyle, and have accepted their role in life. Kino who is the central character in the novel owns a boat that he inherited from his father and grandfather. Other than this, he only owns the hut they live in, and a couple of clay cooking utensils.

The fact that The Pearl is seen as an object that could change ones position in life, it changes people from being idyllic to cheaters, murderers, and traitors. In the beginning, Kino and his wife, Juana are contented with the few possessions they have, but after discovering the pearl , they irreparably change; they become ambitious, greedy, and violent. Kino’s family even plans to spend the money by improving their lifestyle once they sell their fortune.

Basically, the great pearl is a tool used to bring change among the peaceful Indian people living in a foreign country. The doctor and the pearl buyers represent the hypocrisy and exploitation facing the Indians in La Paz. This is seen when the doctor heartlessly refuses to treat Coyotito just because his father could not afford it; he does not care whether the boy lives or dies, all he cares about is the money he gets from people.

On the other hand, the pearl buyers propose a very low price with the aim of exploiting Kino, once they noticed that he desperately needed the money. Using songs in literal works is a cultural tradition that is traced from Indians; in this case, Kino tends to hear songs playing in his head every time he has a strong feeling about something.

A story that started in an idyllic environment, it unfortunately ends in a violent atmosphere, where people turn against each other just for the sake of a Pearl that ends up destroying their lives. For a community that lived peaceful before the discovery of the pearl , the loss of innocence is a theme that is widely explored by the author. The believe that the pearl had the power to change ones status in the community saw many people resulting in violence in order to fulfill their ambitions. Poverty is a degrading issue facing the people of La Paz, and it is because of their desperation to improve their lifestyles that they resulted in cheating and violence.

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The Pearl is a collection of erotic tales, rhymes, songs and parodies in magazine form that were published in London between 1879 to 1881, when they were forced to shut down by the authorities for publishing rude and obscene literature.

• Volume 1 (July 1879)
• Volume 2 (Aug 1879)
• Volume 3 (Sep 1879)
• Volume 4 (Oct 1879)
• Volume 5 (Nov 1879)
• Volume 6 (Dec 1879)
• Volume 7 (Jan 1880)
• Volume 8 (Feb 1880)
• Volume 9 (Mar 1880)
• Volume 10 (Apr 1880)
• Volume 11 (May 1880)
• Volume 12 (Jun 1880)
• Volume 13 (July 1880)
• Volume 14 (Aug 1880)
• Volume 15 (Sep 1880)
• Volume 16 (Oct 1880)
• Volume 17 (Nov 1880)
• Volume 18 (Dec 1880)

This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.

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Essay Samples on The Pearl

Imagery and character analysis in the pearl.

In the very beginning of the book, Kino watches as his son, Coyotio sleeps. While he is sleeping, Coyotito is stung by a scorpion despite Kino’s efforts to catch it and kill it. They go to the doctor to get Kino treated for the sting...

• Character Analysis
• Imagery in Literature

The Theme Of Group Behavior In The Pearl By John Steinbeck

The article is a study exploring the pattern of group activity in John The Pearl's novel. There's a major influence on other individuals from Stein show group behavior. We are the long-term basis of human life. Steinbeck's group-man theory is based on Darwinian interpretation of...

• John Steinbeck

Theme of Greed in John Steinbeck’s Novel The Pearl and Jack London's Story A Piece of Steak

In John Steinbeck’s realistic fiction novel, The Pearl, Kino drastically changes his life when he finds a pearl of great value. Local authors, Jack London and John Steinbeck, both use greed, murder, and poverty in different ways to express their themes. Greed is a theme...

John Steinbeck's The Pearl Through the Prism of New Formalism

Using the New Formalism as a lens to analyze Pearls, the reader can see that Steinbeck uses images, symbols and music to develop a theme according to which luck can lead people with good intentions to the path of evil and negative. In modern society,...

• The New Deal

John Steinbeck: Literary Works, Life and People Who Inspired Him

Recurring Ideas in Of Mice and Men, Travels With Charley, and The Pearl The Desire to Escape One recurring theme that is displayed in Of Mice and Men, Travels With Charley, and The Pearl is the desire to escape, which causes the characters to venture...

• Literature Review

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Best topics on The Pearl

1. Imagery And Character Analysis In The Pearl

2. The Theme Of Group Behavior In The Pearl By John Steinbeck

3. Theme of Greed in John Steinbeck’s Novel The Pearl and Jack London’s Story A Piece of Steak

4. John Steinbeck’s The Pearl Through the Prism of New Formalism

5. John Steinbeck: Literary Works, Life and People Who Inspired Him

• Sonny's Blues
• William Shakespeare
• Hidden Intellectualism
• A Raisin in The Sun
• A Long Way Gone
• Bartleby The Scrivener
• The Tell Tale Heart
• A Good Man Is Hard to Find
• Translation

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Essays on The Pearl

Prompt examples for "the pearl" essays, the symbolism of the pearl.

Discuss the symbolism of the pearl in the novella, exploring its various meanings and how it represents different things to different characters.

Character Analysis: Kino

Analyze the character of Kino, his motivations, and the transformation he undergoes as he searches for the pearl and faces its consequences.

The Effects of Wealth and Greed

Examine how the pursuit of wealth and the consequences of greed are depicted in the novella, including their impact on Kino's family and the community.

The Theme of Family and Sacrifice

Discuss the theme of family and the sacrifices made by Kino and Juana for the sake of their son, Coyotito, and how it drives the plot.

Social Injustice and Discrimination

Explore the themes of social injustice and discrimination in "The Pearl," including the way the indigenous characters are treated by the colonial society.

Nature and the Environment

Analyze the role of nature and the natural world in the novella, considering how it both supports and threatens the characters' lives.

Aggression and Violence

Discuss the instances of aggression and violence in the story, including the conflicts between characters and their consequences.

John Steinbeck's Writing Style

Examine John Steinbeck's writing style and narrative techniques in "The Pearl," including his use of symbolism, imagery, and storytelling devices.

The Tragic Hero and Catharsis

Discuss whether Kino can be considered a tragic hero and whether the novella elicits a sense of catharsis in the reader.

The Ending and Its Interpretations

Explore the ending of "The Pearl" and the various interpretations it offers, including its implications for Kino and Juana.

The Role of Juana in John Steinbeck's "The Pearl"

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Themes in The Pearl by John Steinbeck

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Depiction of Oppression in The Pearl by John Steinbeck

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A Perspective of Nature in The Pearl, a Book by John Steinbeck

The portrayal of verism in the pearl and of mice and men, the pearl theme, the pearl chapter 5 summary, theme of greed in "the pearl".

John Steinbeck

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Kino, Juana, Coyotito, The Doctor, Juan Tomas, Apolonia, The pearl dealers, The thieves and trackers

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The song Eddie Vedder stole from The Who: “I should probably send him some dough”

Not long after Nirvana helped to spearhead the Seattle grunge scene with their debut album Bleach in 1989, Pearl Jam burst on the scene with Ten. The 1991 record quickly became a best-seller, helping the band to establish themselves as one of the most iconic acts of the decade. They were icons of grunge, and lead singer Eddie Vedder was known for his deep, baritone voice and signature long hair.

Pearl Jam continued to find success decades after the initial grunge scene died out, still welcoming thousands of fans to their live shows. Since 1991, they have released 12 studio albums, earning their status as alternative rock legends. 

Vedder and the band have also inspired countless groups that followed, including The White Stripes, Sleater-Kinney, and The Killers. However, their own success is rooted in the influence of a diverse array of artists, such as Led Zeppelin, Kiss, and The Who.

It’s the latter band that Vedder has often heaped praise on throughout the years. The Who was a vital part of the so-called ‘British invasion’ during the 1960s , emerging on the scene with ‘I Can’t Explain’, although they had already released a single, ‘Zoot Suit’/’I’m the Face’, as The High Numbers beforehand. The band quickly became popular due to their relatable lyricism and catchy riffs. ‘My Generation’ came in 1965, which spoke of the dissatisfaction felt by many young people at the time, paving the way for grunge in a way.

Writing an article for Rolling Stone , Vedder claimed: “They asked, ‘What were the limits of rock & roll? Could the power of music actually change the way you feel?’ Pete Townshend demanded that there be spiritual value in music. They were an incredible band whose main songwriter happened to be on a quest for reason and harmony in his life. He shared that journey with the listener, becoming an inspiration for others to seek out their own path.”

He also boldly added: “Presumptuously, I speak for all Who fans when I say being a fan of the Who has incalculably enriched my life. What disturbs me about the Who is the way they smashed through every door of rock & roll, leaving rubble and not much else for the rest of us to lay claim to,” while also labelling them “quite possibly […] the greatest live band ever”.

Thus, it is unsurprising that Vedder has looked to the band as a significant source of inspiration and, in the process, plagiarised them. Vedder was a big fan of the band as a teenager, which is when he first heard their song ‘Blue Red and Grey’, featuring the ukulele. “Yeah, hearing that song when I was maybe 13 legitimised the instrument, it was just a beautiful piece of music,” he told Rolling Stone on another occasion. 

Thus, when Vedder was writing some music for Pearl Jam’s 2000 album Binaural , he took inspiration from The Who’s song when creating ‘Soon Forget’.

He said: “The open chords are unabashedly ‘Blue Red and Grey.’ After that, I felt like I almost had to make a whole ’nother batch of songs to make up for the fact that that one was 30 seconds of plagiarising. I thanked Pete [Townshend] profusely, but I should probably send him some dough, or a nice ukulele. I think I owe it to him at this point”.

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Police officers are starting to use AI chatbots to write crime reports. Will they hold up in court?

Captain Jason Bussert demonstrates Draft One, an AI powered software that creates police reports from body cam audio, at Oklahoma City police headquarters on Friday, May 31, 2024 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. (AP Photo/Nick Oxford)

An Axon body camera is worn by an officer at Oklahoma City police headquarters on Friday, May 31, 2024 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. (AP Photo/Nick Oxford)

Captain Jason Bussert talks about Draft One, an AI powered software made by Axon that creates police reports from body cam audio, at Oklahoma City police headquarters on Friday, May 31, 2024 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. (AP Photo/Nick Oxford)

Draft One, an AI powered software that creates police reports from body cam audio, is demonstrated on a screen at Oklahoma City police headquarters on Friday, May 31, 2024 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. (AP Photo/Nick Oxford)

Axon body cameras charge on a docking station at Oklahoma City police headquarters on Friday, May 31, 2024 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. (AP Photo/Nick Oxford)

Sgt. Matt Gilmore gestures as he talks about using Axon’s Draft One AI software during an interview at Oklahoma City police headquarters on Friday, May 31, 2024 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. (AP Photo/Nick Oxford)

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OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — A body camera captured every word and bark uttered as police Sgt. Matt Gilmore and his K-9 dog, Gunner, searched for a group of suspects for nearly an hour.

Normally, the Oklahoma City police sergeant would grab his laptop and spend another 30 to 45 minutes writing up a report about the search. But this time he had artificial intelligence write the first draft.

Pulling from all the sounds and radio chatter picked up by the microphone attached to Gilmore’s body camera, the AI tool churned out a report in eight seconds.

“It was a better report than I could have ever written, and it was 100% accurate. It flowed better,” Gilmore said. It even documented a fact he didn’t remember hearing — another officer’s mention of the color of the car the suspects ran from.

Oklahoma City’s police department is one of a handful to experiment with AI chatbots to produce the first drafts of incident reports. Police officers who’ve tried it are enthused about the time-saving technology, while some prosecutors, police watchdogs and legal scholars have concerns about how it could alter a fundamental document in the criminal justice system that plays a role in who gets prosecuted or imprisoned.

Built with the same technology as ChatGPT and sold by Axon, best known for developing the Taser and as the dominant U.S. supplier of body cameras, it could become what Gilmore describes as another “game changer” for police work.

“They become police officers because they want to do police work, and spending half their day doing data entry is just a tedious part of the job that they hate,” said Axon’s founder and CEO Rick Smith, describing the new AI product — called Draft One — as having the “most positive reaction” of any product the company has introduced.

“Now, there’s certainly concerns,” Smith added. In particular, he said district attorneys prosecuting a criminal case want to be sure that police officers — not solely an AI chatbot — are responsible for authoring their reports because they may have to testify in court about what they witnessed.

“They never want to get an officer on the stand who says, well, ‘The AI wrote that, I didn’t,’” Smith said.

AI technology is not new to police agencies, which have adopted algorithmic tools to read license plates, recognize suspects’ faces , detect gunshot sounds and predict where crimes might occur. Many of those applications have come with privacy and civil rights concerns and attempts by legislators to set safeguards. But the introduction of AI-generated police reports is so new that there are few, if any, guardrails guiding their use.

Concerns about society’s racial biases and prejudices getting built into AI technology are just part of what Oklahoma City community activist aurelius francisco finds “deeply troubling” about the new tool, which he learned about from The Associated Press. francisco prefers to lowercase his name as a tactic to resist professionalism.

“The fact that the technology is being used by the same company that provides Tasers to the department is alarming enough,” said francisco, a co-founder of the Foundation for Liberating Minds in Oklahoma City.

He said automating those reports will “ease the police’s ability to harass, surveil and inflict violence on community members. While making the cop’s job easier, it makes Black and brown people’s lives harder.”

Before trying out the tool in Oklahoma City, police officials showed it to local prosecutors who advised some caution before using it on high-stakes criminal cases. For now, it’s only used for minor incident reports that don’t lead to someone getting arrested.

“So no arrests, no felonies, no violent crimes,” said Oklahoma City police Capt. Jason Bussert, who handles information technology for the 1,170-officer department.

That’s not the case in another city, Lafayette, Indiana, where Police Chief Scott Galloway told the AP that all of his officers can use Draft One on any kind of case and it’s been “incredibly popular” since the pilot began earlier this year.

Or in Fort Collins, Colorado, where police Sgt. Robert Younger said officers are free to use it on any type of report, though they discovered it doesn’t work well on patrols of the city’s downtown bar district because of an “overwhelming amount of noise.”

Along with using AI to analyze and summarize the audio recording, Axon experimented with computer vision to summarize what’s “seen” in the video footage, before quickly realizing that the technology was not ready.

“Given all the sensitivities around policing, around race and other identities of people involved, that’s an area where I think we’re going to have to do some real work before we would introduce it,” said Smith, the Axon CEO, describing some of the tested responses as not “overtly racist” but insensitive in other ways.

Those experiments led Axon to focus squarely on audio in the product unveiled in April during its annual company conference for police officials.

The technology relies on the same generative AI model that powers ChatGPT, made by San Francisco-based OpenAI. OpenAI is a close business partner with Microsoft, which is Axon’s cloud computing provider.

“We use the same underlying technology as ChatGPT, but we have access to more knobs and dials than an actual ChatGPT user would have,” said Noah Spitzer-Williams, who manages Axon’s AI products. Turning down the “creativity dial” helps the model stick to facts so that it “doesn’t embellish or hallucinate in the same ways that you would find if you were just using ChatGPT on its own,” he said.

Axon won’t say how many police departments are using the technology. It’s not the only vendor, with startups like Policereports.ai and Truleo pitching similar products. But given Axon’s deep relationship with police departments that buy its Tasers and body cameras, experts and police officials expect AI-generated reports to become more ubiquitous in the coming months and years.

Before that happens, legal scholar Andrew Ferguson would like to see more of a public discussion about the benefits and potential harms. For one thing, the large language models behind AI chatbots are prone to making up false information, a problem known as hallucination that could add convincing and hard-to-notice falsehoods into a police report.

“I am concerned that automation and the ease of the technology would cause police officers to be sort of less careful with their writing,” said Ferguson, a law professor at American University working on what’s expected to be the first law review article on the emerging technology.

Ferguson said a police report is important in determining whether an officer’s suspicion “justifies someone’s loss of liberty.” It’s sometimes the only testimony a judge sees, especially for misdemeanor crimes.

Human-generated police reports also have flaws, Ferguson said, but it’s an open question as to which is more reliable.

For some officers who’ve tried it, it is already changing how they respond to a reported crime. They’re narrating what’s happening so the camera better captures what they’d want to put in writing.

As the technology catches on, Bussert expects officers will become “more and more verbal” in describing what’s in front of them.

After Bussert loaded the video of a traffic stop into the system and pressed a button, the program produced a narrative-style report in conversational language that included dates and times, just like an officer would have typed from his notes, all based on audio from the body camera.

“It was literally seconds,” Gilmore said, “and it was done to the point where I was like, ‘I don’t have anything to change.’”

At the end of the report, the officer must click a box that indicates it was generated with the use of AI.

O’Brien reported from Providence, Rhode Island

The Associated Press and OpenAI have a licensing and technology agreement that allows OpenAI access to part of AP’s text archives.