Love Taken for Granted.

Authors Note:  This is a theme analysis on the book "The Pearl." I focused on how there can be more than one theme in a novel, and how different themes play different roles in different novels. This is also my DWA Assessment. 

Kino, his wife and newborn son, are living under unstable, unsanitary conditions. When they come across The Pearl of the World, they don’t know what it can do to their family. “What will you do now that you have become a rich man?”(pg.31), and that is simply to trust and love each other for what they had, not for what they have. The Pearl, written by John Steinbeck, has the main themes of trust and love intertwined throughout the book.

Trust is one of the main themes, because of it’s role within the novel. The Great Pearl of the World is now in the hands of Kino and his wife, Juana. They come to realize that they can sell the pearl to have enough money to do what they want in life. With the gossip around town of their big find, Juana realizes that ‘The song of Evil’ has come to visit. Throughout the middle of the book, people are being killed and their family is being hunted down.  Juana knows that they need to save their family by getting rid of the pearl to save them. Kino isn’t trusting her and is moving on with his life. After numerous times of times when ‘Song of Evil’ has come, they run away and hide. Surrounding themselves with family trust is what needed to happen to continue their normal life. The way Juana tells Kino why they need to get rid of the pearl,l is a pure way of learning to trust, and Kino does the exact opposite.

Although trust is something that was needed in the book, love is another main theme within the book. When Kino doesn’t exactly trust Juana the first several times, he learns that love is more important than the pearl. There are many ways how love is shown throughout the book when Kino decides to finally trust his wife. One of the main ways how love is shown in the book, is at the very end. Kino decides to throw the pearl back into the water to save his family; he does this to show Juana how much love he really does have for her.  As time passes, he eventually does learn that loving and trusting his wife is more important than money.

The Pearl  intertwines the main themes of trust and love, because it shows how trust and love is actually needed within real families that may have the same issues. Just like how trust and love is needed within Kino’s family, it is also important in the Tuohy family. The Blind Side written by Michael Lewis is based on the true story of Michael Oher. This book has the same themes of trust and love because of the devotion and support the Tuohy family gives Michael. Michael has no family and is living on the streets, but when S.J. Tuohy tells his mother about him, they soon learn that he needs love in order to survive. They trust him when they bring him into their house to spend the night, because they don’t know what he will do. Love is definitely shown to him when they ask him if he wants to be apart of their family. After he agrees, they adopt him. Michael realizes that the trust and love they give him is exactly what he needs to live a happy stable life.

Throughout the book, the main themes trust and love are incorporated in and throughout. Trust and love is something that every family needs, and in the book The Pearl, it’s what the family needed to stay together as one. Advantages can make you strong, but trust and love is what makes you stronger.