Nearly all of the colors in this outfit are dark, but they are also all colors that I envision would be present outdoors after nightfall– dark green, black, brown, etc. It’s also a very outdoors-oriented look, as evident in the graphics I’ve chosen: a dark tree print on the tank and the (adorable!) foxes on the socks.

This overall outfit is also much more casual and practical than the other two, because at this point, Kino is willing to do essentially anything in order to escape successfully with his wife and son. Given that they are all hiding in a cliff-side cave, there’s no room for unnecessarily accessories, which is a huge contrast from the previous outfit, in which Kino first found the trouble-seeking pearl.

There’s also a general dark cast mood-wise in this outfit, and it’s clear in the little details, such as the zippers on the leggings. This is very intentional, because the end is truly shocking and pretty devastating to me. But as promised, I’m not revealing anything– read the book to find out how this story ends!

Final Words

The Pearl is remarkably moving; it’s as if Steinbeck truly understood the workings of human emotion. If you’ve read and enjoyed any of his other works, The Pearl will give you Steinbeck’s signature heavy-hitting, gut-wrenching stories without having to invest a ton of time a longer, more complex book.

I think it’s astounding how well Steinbeck can craft a quintessentially Western classic while incorporating the significance of both cultural identity and tradition– he does not, in fact, idealize any one type of figure, and instead attempts to follow the lives of who he deems “ordinary” people. Whether or not they are actually ordinary is another matter, but there’s always that element of relatability, especially with the darker universal themes of greed, pride, lust, and more.