Chinese Gunpowder

The Pearl - Innocence Under Oppression

Kino and Juana suffer the consequences of greed and ambition because of their innocence under colonialism.
Kino and Juana are very religious people. They are also very close to nature because they live on the side of the ocean and in brush huts with dirt floors. They get there money diving for pearls in the see and. They are also very religious because they worship both the Cristian God and older "gods". They also were married traditionally but not legally. They are illiterate so that cannot get the fair price for some items because they don't know how much its really worth because they cannot read. They are also very superstitious because they think that the doctor was giving the baby something to make him sick which he was but usually they would have not been so suspicious. They are poor and they live in the brush houses on the outskirts of the town so that they are sort of outcasts that they work for practically nothing. They are like the lowest of the low because they have been under colonial power for generations of their families.


Kino had ambition when he had found the pearl. He started naming the things that he wanted and would buy with the money he got for selling the pearl. When he got the pearl he was suddenly so popular and every one liked him but the only reason they liked him was to get close to the pearl and try to steal it. When the doctor came, he came to look where Kino had hidden the pearl so he could steal it. The only reason the priest came over was to get Kino to give him the pearl saying that he needed to get married at the church and that he needed to donate money to the church. When he took the pearl to the pear buyers they all tried to cheat him and give him next to nothing for his pearl but Kino wouldn't accept the price so he was going to go to the capitol and sell it. That didn't work because someone broke a hole in his canoe. His neighbor's were a little envious. They wanted to be there so that if it worked out good they could tell the kids and grand kids that they were there, and if it worked out badly they wanted to be there to point fingers and say "ha ha we told you it wouldn't work." All Kino wanted was to have his little boy go to school and to get himself a rifle. He didn't deserve what he got for just wanting that little bit. Kino had to suffer the consequences for the greed of the other people.



Kino and his people lived for centuries under colonial rule so that he and his people didn't know what it was like to be free because they were oppressed for so long. They didn't know that they were being cheated their whole life and thought it was the way it was supposed to be. They were all surprised to see Kino stand up to the pearl buyers. They were also forced to believe that it was not right to rise above their station in life so they always believed that they were supposed to be where they were and not to leave. They believed that somehow they deserved the consequences that they got because they tried to rise above oppression and they tried to leave there station and go to the capitol and sell the pearl. Since they killed a man even after they sold the pearl they could not come back. They didn't deserve to have the consequences they got like the killing of their baby.

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