The Pearl Summary

The main character, Kino, is a poor Mexican-Native American man who lives in the small town of La Paz with his wife, Juana, and his newborn son Coyotito. One morning Kino and Juana spotted a scorpion climbing down the rope that holds Coyotito’s hanging box crib. As Kino tried to carefully remove the scorpion from the rope, Coyotito knocked the scorpion down, causing it to sting him in the shoulder. As Juana tried to suck the poison quickly out of Coyotito, his wailing screams and cries of pain attracted all the neighbors to surround their brush house. Kino and Juana accompanied by their neighbors rushed Coyotito to the town doctor, but due to Kino’s lack of money the doctor refused to check the baby. After Kino and Juana left the doctor, they …show more content…
While the doctor checks up on Coyotito he finds that there is something blue in Coyotitos eye and gives him medicine that eventually makes it go away. Kino assures the doctor that he will pay him tomorrow when he sells the pearl. Later that night someone tries to break into kino's brush hut and attempts to steal the pearl, but Kino drives him away. Juana tells Kino that he should get rid of the pearl before something worse happens, but Kino insists that he will sell the pearl to the dealers tomorrow and they will no longer have possession of the pearl. The next day Kino is accompanied by his neighbors on his way to sell the pearl. When they arrived the buyer offered Kino one thousand pesos-the basic monetary unit of Mexico, several other Latin American countries-whereas Kino thinks he deserves fifty-thousand pesos. Other dealers come in and inspect the pearl all offering the same price of one thousand pesos. Kino refuses to sell the pearl for less than fifty-thousand pesos and declares that he will sell his pearl in the capital. That night, Kino is attacked again by thieves, where he drives them off again.