"The Pearl" by John Steinbeck. About the book and the use of symbolism.

Authors often write about how they are feeling, or try to send messages through their writing. Although on occasion it is very obvious, sometimes it isn't and their thoughts are just guessed at. The writer's use symbols to stand for what they are really feeling or thinking, that's to leave some of the story to the reader's own mind. In John Steinbeck's, The Pearl a pearl was one of the major symbols used in the …

…buyers, that tried to cheat him when selling the pearl. The pearl's symbolism of evil in the book brings out human conflicts, and nature verses human conflicts, the use of an inanimate object that brings bad luck to its owners shows how people's feelings can alter how life goes. If they hadn't thought the pearl was evil, they might not have associated it with the bad things going on, and could have gotten their money.