The PearlBy John Steinbeck

John Ernst Steinbeck

La Paz, Baja California

A Way of Life in The Pearl• 1 out of every 4 Mexicans live on a farm or in a

small village (very poor with little access to basic social services)

• Village homes – along simple dirt or cobblestone roads; dependant upon climate

• Roman Catholic churches are opposite the governmental buildings in the plazas.

• The marketplace, a chief activity

• Treatment of Indians in villages - unfair, exploitation, dishonest

Application•Can money buy happiness? Why or why not?

•If you won $5 million, what three things would you do with the money and why?

•Let’s say you find a great treasure. What do you do? Whom do you tell? How do you expect people to react?

Steinbeck’s Introduction• What is a parable?

• What examples do you know of parables?

• How does what Steinbeck suggests here, "everyone takes his own meaning from it and reads his own life into it," differ from the traditional interpretation of a parable?

Reading Expectations

• Close read (book or notes)

• Come to class or read when you are absent

• Goal is one chapter per day! (If we don’t finish in class? It’s homework!)

• T-Notes (for March 9th)

Project• Journal from a character’s point of view

• Research project on the culture within the novel

• Steinbeck’s life and career

• Significance of the setting with a short paragraph of explanation

• Cultivation of pearls and/or the pearl industry (within the novel?)

• Comic strip of the story (as if for a newspaper)