John Steinbeck uses many examples of animal imagery to help readers better understand characters' motivations and the complexity of the situations in which they find themselves. The short novel The Pearl is an extremely complex and elaborate story that is littered with extensive character emotions and actions as well as confusing situations, which the animal imagery helps grasp in an understandable way.A good example of animal imagery that is applied to The Pearl is the way John describes Kino when he senses the danger when he and his family, Juana and Coyotito, are running away to a safe place. Steinbeck states that Kino had a sort of "animal light" in his eyes as he awakened and hus ...view middle of the document...
This imagery gives you an image of how close-knit the town is and how fast news can spread. Anything that happens in a part of the body of an animal, happens to the whole body, and the whole animal has a whole emotion. So, the town all works together and if one thing happens to a few people, the whole town is affected, just as the whole body of an animal is affected. When news or a rumor starts, it is spread throughout the whole town and it becomes the town, just as the animal has a whole emotion.Another example of a complex situation in which animal imagery is used is the pool where all the animal come to drink and prey. In The Pearl the pool is described as good and evil as the same time. "The little pools were places of life because of the water, and places of killing because of the water, too." This animal imagery gives you a simple and detailed conception that something can bring good, but at the same time bring evil and death upon you. The lake is like the interpretation of the pearl. The pe...