The Pearl - THE SETTING

• The ancient city of La Paz is situated on the southern end of the Baja peninsular, a narrow peninsular separated from mainland Mexico by the Gulf of California.
• La Paz had once been a great pearl trading centre.
• Baja California was a remote and primitive region, a harsh land of snow-covered mountains and arid steep villages.
• In this region, Mexican Indians live in isolated communities, on the fringes of larger towns, often in conditions of extreme poverty.
• Mexicans descended from the Spanish conquistadores or conquerors of Mexico generally lived in the wealthier sections of town.
• After four hundred years, this ethnic polarization can still be left.
• In The Pearl, there is a keen sense of racial antagonism between the poor Indian pearl divers and fishermen and the Spanish-Mexican professional classes like the priest and the doctor.
• Steinbeck also developed the social context of the story.
• He explores the relationship between the Indian fishermen and pearl divers and the more sophisticated town dwellers who are contemptuous of their poorer neighbours.
• The underprivileged poor are exploited all the time and Mexican peasant life is shown to be brutal and fatalistic.