The Pearl: A Review The Pearl is a story about an Mexican Indian man and woman, set in the early to mid-1900's, in Bolivia. It was written by John Steinbeck as a short fiction book that tells of the family's life just before, during, and just after find a great pearl. The book was an amazing and discussed many different ideas. The main idea discussed is whether or not being rich is a good thing. The story explained how everyone would like to be rich yet being rich has a lot of unnecessary baggage that goes with it. There are two major characters in this book. The first is a man named Kino. He is a Mexican Indian of about 25-30 years. He lives in a fairly pr