The Pearl/The Red Pony

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This CD-ROM provides a multimedia companion to these two great novellas by John Steinbeck, geared toward the junior high and high school level. The disk enhances Steinbeck's profound writing about the human experience with lessons about folk tales from which The Pearl is derived, and a challenging game that encourages the user to reconstruct key elements of The Red Pony. System 486 or Pentium processor; double-speed CD-ROM drive; 256SVGA color monitor; Windows 3.1; mouse; SoundBlaster or compatible sound card; 8MB RAM.

1 pages, Audio CD

First published January 1,1947

About the author

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John Ernst Steinbeck was an American writer. He won the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature "for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humor and keen social perception". He has been called "a giant of American letters."
During his writing career, he authored 33 books, with one book coauthored alongside Edward F. Ricketts, including 16 novels, six non-fiction books, and two collections of short stories. He is widely known for the comic novels Tortilla Flat (1935) and Cannery Row (1945), the multi-generation epic East of Eden (1952), and the novellas The Red Pony (1933) and Of Mice and Men (1937). The Pulitzer Prize–winning The Grapes of Wrath (1939) is considered Steinbeck's masterpiece and part of the American literary canon. By the 75th anniversary of its publishing date, it had sold 14 million copies.
Most of Steinbeck's work is set in central California, particularly in the Salinas Valley and the California Coast Ranges region. His works frequently explored the themes of fate and injustice, especially as applied to downtrodden or everyman protagonists.

Community Reviews

Rating(3.9 / 5.0, 72 votes)
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72 reviews All reviews
April 26,2025
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Perła: dobrze się czytało, super napisane, prosto ale z jakim napięciem, chwilami emocje jak thriller. Ogolnie przesłanie proste a może nawet za prost: chciwość jest zła chciwość wyzwala w ludziach co najgorsze plus ciesz się z tego co masz i nie chciej więcej.
Powtarzane: pies perły pieśń zła pięść rodziny itp
Bardzo biedna rodzina Indian znajduje największą perłę świata i od tamtej pory wsyztsko zaczyna być gorzej a jak wiadomo i Steinbecka nigdy nie jest tak źle żeby nie mogło być gorzej. Nagle wszyscy chcą ich oszukać okraść a najlepiej to zabić i zabrać perłę. Podpalają im dom itp więc muszą uciekać do innego miasta ukrywając się, żeby tam spróbować sprzeda perłę. Pododzaja za nimi tropiciele, oni ukrywają się w jaskini a tropiciele przypadkiem koło nich rozbijają obóz na noc. Bohater postanawia w nocy wyjść i ich zabić bo to ich jedyna szansa, i udaje mu się to ale kiedy na już na nich wybiegać w jaskini ich malutki syn krzyknął i oni myśleli że to kojot i strzelili w tamtą stronę. Bohater ich zabił ale jak się potem dowiadujemy oni zabili jego syna. Małżeństwo zrozpaczone wraca do wioski w żałobie i wyrzucają ostatecznie perłę spowrotem do morza.
April 26,2025
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Two very good stories, albeit hard to digest in typical Steinbeck fashion. The Red Pony was more a collection of 4 very short stories than a continuous story.
April 26,2025
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“The people say that the two seemed to be removed from human experience; that they had gone through pain and had come out on the other side.”
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This tale was recommended to me by my 7th grade Portuguese teacher when I told her I read "The Old Man and the Sea" and it has been in the back of my mind ever since. After reading "The Winter of our Discontent" I was excited to read this but it fell short of my expectations.


I suppose I can't judge it too harshly, it was just a retelling of a Mexican folk tale, but it didn't leave much of an impression in me. It's a cautionary tale about how greed can ruin our lives and it serves it's purpose there; as a story it isn't all that.


This edition also includes "The Red Pony", who's review I'll eventually edit here.

April 26,2025
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This slender volume joins two short works by John Steinbeck. The Pearl tells a parable about the dangers of sudden fortune; a poor young couple, Kino and Juana, find a pearl of magnificent value which brings them only trouble and tragedy. The Red Pony spins a pastel yarn of life in the American west, where a young boy named Jody finds purpose and aspiration when he is gifted a vivacious pony only to learn a tough lesson about how ephemeral life can be.
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So in one way these stories mirror one another as both feature wonderful gifts and end in heartbreak, but the lessons are entirely different. In The Pearl, circumstances repeatedly warn Kino and Juana that their great find is a curse as greedy men try to rob or swindle them at every turn. They try to liquidate their asset and build a better life but are stymied at every turn; the pearl becomes more a prison than an opportunity. Juana attempts to throw the pearl back into the sea, but Kino, driven by pride and big dreams, violently blocks her. And this ensures the final, calamitous series of events.
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The Red Pony, on the other hand, isn't so much about averting disaster as dealing with what you can't control. When Gabilan, the title pony, catches an infection, no amount of love or care can save him. Jody's choice lies in how he will deal with the death of his beloved friend.
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So while these stories were likely packaged to form a volume solid enough to sit on a shelf, together they show both sides of that age-old human conundrum about changing what we can, accepting what we can't and being able to tell the difference.

Edited 8-13-2018
April 26,2025
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i love steinbeck. sometimes you just get a hankering for certain authors, you know? this satisfied.


"I tell those old stories, but they're not what I want to tell. I only know how I want people to feel when I tell them."
April 26,2025
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These are two of Steinbeck's shorter works combined in a Penguin edition. Perhaps a better description is "just right stories"--beautiful writing with no more words than necessary. The Pearl explores what happens to a pearl diver and his family when he finds "the pearl of the world." We see how the potential of riches transforms the diver's heart as well as his community and how he struggles with the tension between the 'song of the pearl' and the 'song of his family'.

The Red Pony is a rich story of a young boy growing up on a western ranch in the early twentieth century. We find wonder, hardship, growing into early manhood, facing the mysteries of life and death and the perplexities of family.
April 26,2025
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The Pearl is a story I had not read since my school days. It's funny, I remembered it as an "island story" but it's really set in Mexico. And man, is it a tragic tale. The end is just too darn sad. But it is superbly well written!

The Red Pony is great, and sad, too! Reading Steinbeck is like talking to a great friend! I read the first story in this collection in school and I'm really glad I re-read it and read the whole thing! The characters are so vivid - Jody, Billy Buck, Gabilan, and Gitano, to name a few - and the settings are alive with the author's vibrant description!
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