John Steinbeck’s The Pearl, a Theme of Ethnicity and Environment, and Apocalypse of Disaster(An Eco-critical Analysis)
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In the decade of
1990, Eco-criticism emerged and developed as a separate branch of literary
criticism. It began in America and initially it was a meeting place of American
critics discussing and exchanging thoughts and views on American literature
specifically. During the same period the various environmental discussions especially
after United Nation’s Harlem Brundtland Report in 1987, began on the
international level and thereby it left its impressions on the world of
literature also. Consequently, it emerged into the discussions of the eco-criticism
and these critics have founded their association ASLE (Association for the
Study of Literature and Environment) and their journal ISLE (Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment). Moreover in 1996, Cheryll Glotfelty, began The Ecocritical
Reader, a special journal of eco-criticism. As ecology is concerned with
the relationships between living organisms in their natural environment as well
as their relationships with that environment, eco-criticism is concerned with
the relationship between literature and environment or how human relationship
with its physical environment is reflected in literature. Some other
contributors to the eco-criticism movement are Lawrence Buell, Cheryll
Glotfelty, Simon C. Estok, Harold Fromm, William Howarth, William Rueckert,
Suellen Campbell, Michael P. Branch and Glen A. Love.
The movement of Eco-criticism is significantly marked with the focus on ‘Deep Ecology’. The
term is coined by a Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess, in 1973. According to
Naess one should “go beyond the factual level of ecology as a science to a
deeper level of self-awareness and ‘Earth wisdom’” (Porrit and Winner, 1988,
p.235) The two major principles (No. 1 and 3) of ‘Deep Ecology’ are: The well-being and flourishing of non-human
life on Earth have value in themselves, independent of the usefulness of the
non-human world for human purposes. And, humans have no right to reduce this
richness and diversity except to satisfy vital needs. (p.235). In
fact the ecological problems severed after the industrial revolution and
thereby capitalism and colonialism. The ethnic culture of the world, especially
the cultures having heritage and history were true and honest and moreover
coherent to nature and hardly there were any exploitation of the nature other
than the vital human needs. The Report of the World Commission on Environment
and Development: Our Common Future or Gro Harlem Brundtland Report of 1987 also focuses on the
conditions of ethnic minorities and impacts of the industrialization on them in the first chapter of the report, “A
Threatened Future”. The reflections of Eco-criticism movement and ‘Deep
Ecology’ are found in the contemporary world literature, more specifically in
the literature of the Third World, who are prominent sufferers of the problems
and also in the American literature, the nation which perhaps is the most
responsible for the problem.
The human
interference in ecology and its impact on the ethnic culture is also focused in
the beginning of the twentieth century American Literature. The dangers of
common future and environmental disasters are predicted in the first half of
the twentieth century and also there is presentation of the destruction of
eco-friendly culture of ethnic communities by colonialism. American Nobel and
Pulitzer Prize winner novelist John Steinbeck’s (1902-1968) novella The Pearl (1945) narrates a story of a
Mexican-Indian pearl diver and the confrontation of his ethnic thoughts with
the capitalistic one. The novella is interpreted from the ecological point of
view. The fact that just before writing this novel, John Steinbeck, along with
his friend Ed Rickets went on the exploration of the seacoast in terms of the
ecological functions of the various organisms that existed there. During that
exploration Steinbeck first heard of the story of the “Pearl of the World” from
the ethnic members. It was a story of a large pearl which was eventually tossed
back into the sea from where it was originally taken. During that period
Steinbeck was more engrossed in ecology and therefore some critics have
interpreted this novella as Steinbeck’s statement about the need for the
ecology to be left as undisturbed as possible. When one takes a great pearl from its natural setting, then
one is destroying a part of the natural order of things, which could result into
a catastrophe or disaster.
The Pearl is a story of
Kino, a Mexican-Indian pearl diver and his wife Juana. They are living their
happy life within their periphery. The ethnic belief of Kino and his community is
unaware of the culture of mastering anything but being a part of nature. The
Capitalistic ideas of ‘ownership’ and ‘master-slave relationship’ are beyond
their comprehension but the culture has now been unscrupulous due to the
invading attitude of the Europeans in their region including the Church and
Christianity, a totally new religious and more a dogmatic belief imposed upon
them by the white people. One fine morning Kino goes to dive in the gulf for
oysters from his canoe. Juana
tends to Coyotito, their son in the canoe by applying brown seaweed to his
shoulder, which is swollen from the scorpion’s bite. While collecting oysters at
the ocean bottom, Kino spots a larger-than-usual oyster at the bottom of the
gulf. Kino curiously collects it, and returns to the canoe. He does not want to
open it immediately, but Juana prompts him to open the oyster. When Kino opens
it, he is amazed to find a pearl of a larger size of a sea gull’s egg. Juana
gazes at the immense pearl whereas Kino is extremely happy about both the pearl
and his cured son Coyotito. The pearl later on becomes an attraction of other
oyster divers and the villagers including the European doctor and priest. The
news is spread in the nearby villages and some merchants approach Kino to
purchase the pearl. Kino is also excited and started to build the dream castles
of the future of Coyotito. He wants his son to live a sophisticated life like
Europeans. But his expectations meet frustration when the merchants offer him a
very less price for the pearl when Kino knows that it costs much more than
their offer. Moreover the merchants are united and thereby Kino is trapped by
them. The pearl thus brings a series of calamity and catastrophe in the quiet
life Kino and his family. On the other hand Juana senses that the pearl is evil
and urges Kino to throw the pearl back into the sea, but he refuses, believing
still that the pearl will give them better lives than they have. Juana reminds
him of the ethnic belief of not to take too much from the ocean. If ocean gives
you anything excess it should be returned to the ocean. Juana’s advice reflects
the native Mexican Indian culture which is against the exploitation of the
nature. This reflects the ‘Deep Ecological’ attitude that human
beings have no right to reduce the richness and diversity of the nature except
to satisfy vital needs,
which is already imbibed in the ethnic culture of Mexico. Kino is helpless to
leave his house as well as his village as merchants follow him vehemently. One
night Kino is attacked and wounded for the pearl. Kino is bloodied and beaten, and the
attackers managed to escape without Kino being able to identify them. Again,
like the previous night, Juana begs Kino to throw the pearl back into the sea,
but obstinate Kino again refuses to do so. Now, he again envisions the pearl
being sold and the money being used to fund Coyotito’s education. He resolves
to sell the pearl in the capital.
For a day he lives with his brother, Juan Tomás
but as the followers reach there he runs away from there. Kino, Juana and
Coyotito now head towards Loreto. Kino is careful to leave no tracks but all
his efforts are futile. They travel for the whole night until the next dawn and
because of this journey they fall asleep but Kino is suddenly awakened by
noises and when he comes out stealthily and sees trackers following them. They
all now head toward high mountains and when they reach the first rise of the
mountains, Kino tries to convince Juana to hide Coyotito while he leads the
trackers away. But Juana refuses to do so and they march forward where Kino
finds a stream. He there hides Juana
and Coyotito in a small cave and makes false tracks up the side of the
mountain, hoping to mislead the trackers; he then hides in the cave with his
family.
The
trackers follow them there too and make camp for the night. Kino realizing the
future danger vows to attack the trackers before they attack him and his
family. As he moves near the campfire of the trackers, one of them points out
Kino and aims his gun toward where he has heard a cry in that night. Kino jumps
on the tracker and kills him with his knife. He snatches the dead tracker’s gun
and shoots a second tracker. The third tracker manages to scramble away from
Kino, but Kino shoots and kills this tracker as well. He now notices the
quietness of the night but it is broken by the huge scream of Juana. Kino loses
everything when he knows that Coyotito has been killed by the watcher’s
gunfire.
In
the concluding part of the novel the narrator presents Kino and Juana walk side
by side into town. Juana is carrying a bundle that contains a corpse of
Coyotito. People watch in silence as the two walk silently, as in a trance.
Kino and Juana reach the beach where Kino offers the pearl to Juana to throw it
in the sea. Juana refuses and tells Kino that he should do it so He cocks his
arm and throws the pearl as far out into the sea as he can; it sinks to the
sandy bottom among the water plants.
The novella is concerned with life and death philosophically
and at the same time it focuses on the ethnic beliefs. For the European
invaders these beliefs are ignorance and superstitions but in practice they teach
the ethnics to become honest to the nature and avoid unnecessary ecological
exploitation of it. During the course of the plot, the novelist presents how innocent
family becomes a victim of the changing moral values which is not consistent
with the ecological values. The moral order generated by capitalism and
colonialism has destructed the genuine ethnic values. The ethnic values protect
nature and teach human being to be part of it and not the invader of the
nature. The pearl in the novella is actually supposed to be used to bring their
child out of darkness and into the world of light, Kino expects the better
future of his son with the help of the pearl and thereby he will be able to
help all the natives. On the contrary, the pearl becomes the direct instrument
of the child’s death. Steinbeck also emphasizes the idea of better future and
civilization given by the capitalism and colonialism. The ideas of the
development and progress after the industrial revolution are based purely on
the destruction of ecology and nature. Over-exploitation of natural resources
and man’s disregard of the air, water and soil that sustain him have given rise
to the question of the survival of both human and the planet. Since the mid of
the twentieth century the intellectuals of the world have been anxious about
the ecological future of the world. United Nation’s Harlem
Brundtland’s Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development: Our Common
Future focuses on the threatened future and redefines the concept of
sustainable development. The report also endeavours to find out the solutions
on the ecological disasters along with species and ecosystem and supports
comprehensive human action for the resources of the development. It can also be
found that, indirectly and perhaps unknowingly the Report intends to revive the ethnic social and moral values
coherent with the ecological and environmental protection of the nature. The
history shows that of all human extinctions which have occurred since 1600 AD,
75% of the mammal extinctions and 66% of avian extinctions can be directly
attributed to human activity. (Jones et al., 1990, p.156) These are actually the consequences of extensive human greed.
Moreover, these figures specifically include the largest and hence easily
visible plants and animal species. A lot more can be there beyond our vision.
The protection includes even cultural, social and linguistic values of the
society, especially the values which are on the way of extinction. Steinbeck in
The Pearl also focuses the
destruction of culture and language. Especially ethnic languages have been
disappearing since the seventeen century due to the European colonialism. The
Mexican Indian community had been gradually losing its ethnic religion and
language, which was a true vehicle of the culture. Steinbeck presents it with
the use of various songs sung on the different occasions by this community. It
also reflects the strong emotional and social bond between human beings in this
culture. Unfortunately it is now on the way of extinction along with their
language. Lawrence Buell emphasizes this threat. In his book The Future of Environmental
Criticism: Environmental Crisis and Literary Imagination (2005), he states
that more than 6000 languages existing on earth are expected to disappear
during the century. The main cause is the dominance of English. In this novella
also Steinbeck focuses on how the native language becomes corrupt due to the
influence of European languages, especially English. This new language is not
capable to express everything existing in the ethnic culture as their native
languages have more possibilities of expression. (E.g. Buell focuses on: English
lacks the distinction between the intimate and formal second person singular or
distinction between the relations from maternal side and paternal side.) This
shows an ultimate destruction of the desirable language destruction in the
ethnic Mexican Indian culture. Further the new concept of development and
progress emerged in the innocent world of these people. These concepts have also
fascinated the ethnic and native people too. Many of these cultures also faced
either complete holocaust or extinction of their ethnic identity of
civilization and religion. Helplessly they became the part of the new
industrialized and capitalist culture which is based on the concept of ‘master-slave
relationship’ and ‘ownership ideas’. The environment and ecology which was
protected for thousands of years without any special and deliberate human
efforts have been struggling to keep their own existence for the last more than
two hundred years and moreover the intellectuals express their fears to be in
more danger in next few decades. Steinbeck, in this novella, presents the
futility of the concepts of modernity and development and underlines the
strength in the ethnic cultural thought coherent with ecology.
The Brundtland
Report is not only a study report or exploration of the present environmental
conditions of the earth; it also foretells the disastrous future of the world.
In other words the Report is an apocalypse of the destruction of the world owing
to human activities. Steinbeck also predicts the future of the earth with the
presentation of legend in the Mexican Indian culture in the form of literature.
It does not only speak for the conservation loss but also it presents the massive
loss of remedies over the conservation damage, which human cultures had been possessing
for generations on the same earth. The novella reminds us about the treasure of
cultures and civilizations which we have lost in the process of so called development
since seventeenth century. The measures which are now being suggested to
protect environment and thereby civilization were already the part of ethnic
culture and they were destroyed. The ethnic cultural values presented here were
coherent with Arne Naess’ concept of deep ecology in which he thinks of a
deeper level of self awareness and ‘Earth wisdom’. Simultaneously, Steinbeck
warns about the danger of existence of the earth and life on the earth in this
novella and Brundtland Report of World Commission on Environment and
Development accounts the same. Further, the movement of Eco-criticism was also
flourished after the Report but these dangers were predicted long back in the
first half of the twentieth century by John Steinbeck in his novella The Pearl, which also speaks for the apocalyptic
vision of Steinbeck.
References:
-
Steinbeck,
John. The Pearl. London: Puffin,
2011.
-
Buell,
Lawrence. The Future of Environmental Criticism: Environmental
Crisis and Literary Imagination. Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2005.
-
Gro Harlem
Brundtland. Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development:
Our Common Future. Oslo: United Nations, 20 March 1987.
-
Jones G.
et.al. Collins Dictionary of Environmental Science. Glasgow: Harper
Collins Publishers, 1990
-
Porrit,
J. and Winner, D. The Coming of the Greens. Glasgow: Fontana/Collins, 1988.
- Tošić, Jelica.
“Ecocriticism- Interdisciplinary Study of Literature and Environment”, Facta Univrrsitatis
Series: Working and Living Environmental
Protection Vol. 3, No. 1, (pp.43-50). Serbia: University of Niš, 2006.
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