The Pearl recap

When a scorpion stings the infant Coyotito, the wealthy town doctor refuses to help his poor parents, the pearl diver Kino and his wife Juana. Kino then finds an exceptionally large pearl and imagines it will pay for treatment, a church wedding, education for his son, and a better life. Instead, the discovery draws the priest, doctor, pearl buyers, thieves, and the ambitions of the whole town toward the family. The buyers offer a price Kino knows is dishonest, so he resolves to sell the pearl elsewhere. After repeated attacks, Kino kills an assailant, and the family flees their burned home and ruined canoe. Trackers pursue them into the mountains. During Kino's attempt to eliminate the threat, a tracker fires toward Coyotito's cry and kills the child. Kino and Juana return carrying their son, and Kino casts the pearl into the sea, rejecting the object whose promise has ended in violence and grief.

Kino, Juana, and their infant son Coyotito live in a brush house near a colonial town. A scorpion falls into Coyotito's hanging box and stings him before Kino can crush it. Juana acts quickly, but she wants the town doctor to treat the child. The doctor refuses to come because Kino is poor and can offer only a few small pearls. The rebuff makes Kino newly conscious of the barriers surrounding his family. The next day Juana takes Coyotito in Kino's canoe while Kino dives for oysters, hoping for a pearl valuable enough to pay for care. He opens an unusually large oyster and discovers a magnificent pearl. At almost the same moment, Coyotito's swelling begins to ease. Kino believes the discovery will transform the family's future, and news of it begins spreading through the town.

Kino names the possibilities he sees in the pearl: a church wedding with Juana, new clothes, a rifle, and schooling for Coyotito so the boy can read and understand the systems that keep their community powerless. The pearl also awakens desire throughout the town. The priest visits, and the doctor reverses his earlier refusal, treating Coyotito after making the parents believe the poison may still be dangerous. That night someone enters the brush house and attacks Kino while searching for the pearl. Juana begins to regard it as a source of evil, but Kino insists it is their one chance to escape poverty. The next morning the family goes to the pearl buyers. Their spokesman declares the pearl an oddity of little value, while other buyers reinforce his low estimate. Convinced that they are colluding, Kino refuses every offer and decides to take the pearl to the capital himself.

Juana tries before dawn to return the pearl to the sea, but Kino stops her and strikes her in his rage. On his way back toward the house, he is attacked again and kills one of the men fighting him; the pearl is knocked away, and Juana recovers it. Their canoe has been deliberately damaged and their house is set on fire, cutting off both livelihood and shelter. Juana tells Kino that they must leave immediately. Juan Tomás and Apolonia conceal the family for the day, and that night Kino, Juana, and Coyotito slip away toward the north. Kino recognizes signs that trackers are following. He tries to hide their trail across the dry ground, but the pursuers remain close, so the family turns into the mountains in search of water and defensible terrain.

Kino leads Juana and Coyotito to a mountain water hole, then hides them in a cave above it while three trackers camp below. He plans to take the men's rifle after dark. Coyotito cries as Kino approaches the camp; a tracker hears the sound, mistakes it for an animal, and fires toward the cave. Kino attacks, killing all three pursuers and seizing the weapon, but the shot has already killed Coyotito. Kino and Juana walk back into town together, she carrying their dead child and he carrying the rifle. The townspeople watch them pass toward the shore. Kino now sees the pearl not as a path to education and freedom but as the center of the greed, brutality, and loss that have overtaken them. He offers it to Juana; she asks him to discard it. Kino throws it far into the sea, where it sinks out of sight.

Kino and Juana flee into the mountains after Kino kills a man who attacks him for the pearl. Three trackers follow them to a water hole, forcing the family to hide in a cave above it. Kino descends at night to stop them, but one tracker mistakes Coyotito's cry for an animal and fires toward the cave. Kino kills the men and takes their rifle, only to discover that the shot has killed his son. He and Juana return to town on foot, carrying Coyotito's body. Changed by grief and watched by the community, they walk to the shore together. Kino sees only violence and loss in the pearl that once seemed to contain every possible future, and he throws it back into the sea. The hoped-for marriage, education, security, and social advancement vanish with it; the family survives, but the dream attached to the pearl has cost them their child.