A poor diver finds the perfect pearl—and it costs him everything he loves.
Who drives the story
A young, strong indigenous pearl diver who wants only his son's future and then, briefly, everything. The pearl turns his caution into defiance and his defiance into killing, until he throws his fortune into the sea holding nothing but a rifle and a grave.
Kino's wife, practical and quietly strong, the first to name the pearl evil and beg him to throw it back. She endures his fist, the burning house, and her son's death, and walks home beside Kino as remote as Heaven.
Kino and Juana's infant son, stung by a scorpion before he can walk far. He is the reason for the pearl and the reason it is worthless—the schoolbooks Kino dreams of belong to a dead boy.
A fat, greedy man of a race that despises Kino's people, who dreams of Paris and refuses a dying baby for lack of money. He returns the moment the pearl exists, poisons the child and sells the cure.
Kino's brother, the voice of the town's old wisdom, who warns that defying the buyers means defying the whole structure of the town. He hides the fugitives and sends them into the mountains with supplies.
How they are connected
Kino's wife, practical and quietly strong, the first to name the pearl evil and beg him to throw it back.
Kino and Juana's infant son, stung by a scorpion before he can walk far.
Kino and Juana's infant son, stung by a scorpion before he can walk far.
A fat, greedy man of a race that despises Kino's people, who dreams of Paris and refuses a dying baby for lack of money.
Kino's brother, the voice of the town's old wisdom, who warns that defying the buyers means defying the whole structure of the town.
Go deeper
Wealth as corruption · Colonial injustice · Dreams of the future · Fate and the songs
Themes explainedThe full story act by act, the ending explained and a quick quiz.
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