-meant to be a short review John Steinbeck's "The Pearl" said to be "a brutal story with flashes of beauty" by the author himself, is a rather depressing novella about wealth and the evil it attracts despite those wanting to use it for the greater good. Written in 1944, it was influenced and inspired by a number of sources. The basic plot was adapted from the "Sea of Cortez" an earlier narrative Steinbeck wrote during the …
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showed last 75 words of 1154 total
…has marked Steinbeck's work as a whole is...the sense of black and white things and good and bad things - that is to say, the sense of a fabulist of a propagandist rather than the insight of an artist." However, readers would agree that it is the allegorical form along with the poetry of the simplistic language and underlying symbolism that makes "The Pearl" such a work of art and a joy to read.