What is the parable and moral lesson of The Pearl?

The term "parable" applies to Steinbeck's novella in two
ways. The story of Kino and Juana includes elements of a parable, a literary story that
develops a moral theme or lesson. It is presented as an unusual narrative, the retelling
of an old story that has remained in people's hearts. In the introduction to Part I,
Steinbeck writes:

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In the town they tell the story of the great
pearl--how it was found and how it was lost again. They tell of Kino, the fisherman, and
of his wife, Juana, and of the baby, Coyotito. And because the story has been told so
often, it has taken root in every man's mind. And, as with all retold tales that are in
people's hearts, there are only good and bad things and black and white things and good
and evil things and no in-between anywhere.

If this story
is a parable, perhaps everyone takes his own meaning from it and reads his own life into
it.

Steinbeck does not say
that The Pearl is a parable, but his diction--"if"--immediately
associates the story with a parable as he suggests that a moral less or "meaning" might
well be drawn from it. It is, he says, a story of "good and evil," the parameters for
measuring moral conduct.

Also, the title, The
Pearl, and the fabulous pearl itself that Kino finds can be interpreted as
allusions to the "Parable of the Pearl," also known as "The Pearl of Great Price," found
in the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament of the Bible. Steinbeck's title itself
suggests a moral lesson in the work.

The primary moral
lesson is developed from the contrast between Kino and Juana's life before discovering
the great pearl and their life after it came into their possession. The opening scene in
the novella shows Kino, Juana, and their baby son, Coyotito, living in peace and natural
beauty on the beach, very near the ocean's waters. They live in poverty, but there is
harmony and contentment in the simplicity of their lives. In the final scene, Kino and
Juana return to the beach--their dead baby's body wrapped in his mother's shawl--where
Kino throws the pearl back into the ocean. The events between the beginning and the end,
once Kino becomes obsessed with the pearl, detail the manner in which evil destroys all
that was good in Kino and Juana's life together.

The lesson
of The Pearl can be stated numerous
ways:

• A man can lose all that he truly values if
  he becomes obsessed with wealth.


• Greed corrupts and opens
  the door to evil.


• What is most valuable in life cannot be
  purchased at any price.

However the lesson of
The Pearl might be stated, the story shows clearly that Kino's
"Pearl of the World" destroys the peace, harmony, and goodness of his own
world.