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The Pearl (view source)

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{{tropelist}}
* [[Ambition Is Evil]]
* [[Artifact of Attraction]]: The pearl
* [[Artifact of Doom]]: Sort of, because [[Humans Are the Real Monsters]].
* [[Does Not Wear Shoes]]: Juana, probably due to [[Barefoot Poverty]].
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* [[Littlest Cancer Patient]] (okay, it's not cancer exactly, but...)
* [[Leitmotif]]: A literary example in Kino and Juana's Song of Family and The Pearl's Song of Evil
* [[Lost Aesop]]: The original moral is supposed to be interpreted as 'Greed is bad'. [[Fridge Logic|Since when was curing your child of poison and wanting to get your kid an education greedy? Or getting officially married?]]
** Looked at in the cultural context of the setting, and the lack of education of the lower classes, it would actually make sense. Consider: In listing the things he wants to achieve with the riches from the pearl, Kino says he will legally marry Juana and buy the family new clothes. Okay, reasonable. Then he goes on to say he wants to get a rifle for himself {{spoiler|(he does eventually)}}, and he'll send Coyotito to school - this last a major deal for his neighbors because of the cultural influence education will have on their simple way of life that they've known for generations. Then, later on in the novel, Kino rehashes these dreams, but his rendition of them is gradually much more grandiose than when they were first mentioned.
** Weren't the pearl-buying cartel, the doctor, and the various people who tried to steal the pearl {{Spoiler|(leading eventually to Coyotito's death)}} motivated by greed?
* [[MacGuffin]]: The pearl, of course.
* [[Meaningful Name]]: Coyotito is, if it wasn't clear enough, named after a coyote. Which leads to him {{spoiler|being shot in the head when his cries are mistaken for that of a coyote's}}
* [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]]: Kino goes on one in the penultimate chapter.
* [[Tear Jerker]]: Regardless how you feel about the story, there's no denying that {{spoiler|[[Kill the Cutie|Coyotito's]] death is [[Downer Ending|incredibly]] sad.}}
* [[We Could Have Avoided All This]]: After Kino refuses the pearl dealer's offer of 1000 and then 1500 pesos for the pearl (because he believes it's worth at least fifty times that much and that the dealer's trying to cheat him), some of his neighbors express the view that he should have accepted the 1500, since that's wealth enough to a poor man who's never had any money. {{spoiler|Considering what happens in the last third of the novel, they may have been right.}}
 
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