The Pearl, Chapter 3 quiz

Questions and answers

1. 1

   Question 1. How does news of Kino's pearl travel through the town at the start of Chapter 3?

   • Correct answer: It spreads faster than Kino himself can walk home, as if the town were a single organism
   • Women call it over the fences, but it never travels beyond the brush houses into the stone town
   • The priest announces it at the church, and the shopkeepers and doctor hear it from him
   • Panting little boys carry it to every family, and their mothers hear it only after the boys arrive

   Steinbeck describes the town as a colonial animal with a nervous system of its own: news of the pearl reaches every resident before Kino can get back to his brush house.

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2. 2

   Question 2. Which future possibility does Kino most emphasize when he dreams aloud about the pearl?

   • Paying for the repairs that are necessary to the old church
   • Becoming the patron who owns every one of the pearl-buying offices
   • Moving his family into a stone and plaster house in the town
   • Correct answer: Sending Coyotito to school so the boy can read and write

   Kino's deepest dream is an education for Coyotito. He believes that if his son can read, the family will finally escape the ignorance that has kept them poor and cheated.

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3. 3

   Question 3. Why does the doctor come to Kino's hut in Chapter 3, given that he refused to see Coyotito earlier?

   • The priest has ordered him to reconsider
   • Correct answer: He has heard about the pearl and wants a share of the new wealth
   • Juana secretly went to his house and begged him
   • He has realized the scorpion's venom is more dangerous than he thought

   Only the news of the pearl changes the doctor's mind. His arrival is a calculated move to claim Coyotito as his patient and get close to the family's fortune.

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4. 4

   Question 4. What does the doctor do to Coyotito during his visit?

   • He applies a seaweed poultice to the shoulder and tells Juana to carry the baby to his gate
   • He examines the shoulder, says the sting is healing nicely, and leaves without asking for payment
   • Correct answer: He gives the baby a capsule of white powder, then comes back with ammonia when the baby falls sick
   • He opens the swollen sting on the baby's shoulder and sucks the poison out before it can travel

   The doctor places a capsule of white powder far back on the baby's tongue; later Coyotito falls sick, Kino remembers "the white powder" with suspicion, and the doctor returns to give him "three drops of ammonia." The chapter never says what the powder was.

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5. 5

   Question 5. How does the doctor learn the location of the hidden pearl?

   • He offers to protect the pearl in his safe, and Kino immediately uncovers it for him
   • His servant secretly returns after dark and watches Kino dig in the dirt floor
   • The neighbors eagerly tell him that Kino buried the pearl underneath his sleeping-mat
   • Correct answer: He watches Kino's eyes carefully and notices them flick toward the hiding place

   After he has treated the baby, the doctor closes his bag, talks about the bill and offers to keep the pearl in his safe. As he warns that it could be stolen, he sees Kino's eyes flick involuntarily to the floor near the side post of the brush house.

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6. 6

   Question 6. According to Chapter 3, how do the pearl buyers really operate?

   • As agents of the church, which sets a fair price for every pearl brought in
   • Correct answer: As agents in separate offices who secretly work for one buyer to fake competition
   • As separate shopkeepers who each pay whatever price the fisherman first asks
   • As independent rivals who bid openly against one another to win each pearl

   The narrator says "there was only one" buyer, who "kept these agents in separate offices to give a semblance of competition"; the agents haggle each fisherman down to the lowest price he would stand.

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7. 7

   Question 7. What happens to Kino during the night in Chapter 3?

   • Correct answer: An intruder enters the hut and Kino attacks, but is struck on the head and bleeds
   • The doctor returns with his servant and digs the pearl out of its hiding place
   • He travels down to the beach and guards his canoe against the pearl buyers
   • He sleeps peacefully beside the buried pearl until the roosters crow at dawn

   A prowler slips into the brush house to look for the pearl. Kino lunges in the dark with his knife, strikes the man, and is himself wounded in the struggle.

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8. 8

   Question 8. How does Juana respond to the events of Chapter 3?

   • She advises Kino to sell the pearl to the doctor tonight to settle his bill
   • She hides the pearl in her shawl and promises the thief will never find it
   • Correct answer: She begs Kino to throw the pearl back into the sea, calling it evil
   • She asks the priest to protect the pearl in the church overnight

   After the night attack, Juana cries, "This pearl is like a sin! It will destroy us," and begs Kino to break it, bury it or "throw it back into the sea."

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9. 9

   Question 9. Which of the following events actually occur in Chapter 3 of The Pearl?

   • The priest wonders what the pearl is worth and thinks of repairs to the church.

     Happened

     When the news reaches him in his garden, the priest remembers "certain repairs necessary to the church" and wonders what the pearl would be worth.

   • Kino dreams aloud of a rifle and a church wedding with Juana.

     Happened

     Looking into the pearl, Kino says, "We will be married—in the church," and later, "Perhaps a rifle."

   • The doctor gives Coyotito a capsule of white powder and later treats him with ammonia.

     Happened

     The doctor puts the capsule far back on the baby's tongue, and when he returns to the sick baby he gives him "three drops of ammonia" in water.

   • Kino sells the pearl to the pearl buyers for a fair price.

     Didn't happen

     No sale happens in this chapter; Kino tells the doctor, "Tomorrow I will sell it and then I will pay you."

   • Juana begs Kino to throw the pearl back into the sea.

     Happened

     After the night attack, Juana cries that the pearl will destroy them and says, "Let us throw it back into the sea."

   • A stranger creeps into the brush house at night and is cut by Kino's knife.

     Happened

     In the dark Kino strikes at the intruder in the corner, feels his knife go through cloth, and later sees "a little line of blood on the steel."

   • Kino's brother Juan Tomás is murdered defending the pearl.

     Didn't happen

     Juan Tomás is not hurt in this chapter; he shares Kino's joy with the neighbors and stands up with Kino when the priest comes in.

   • Kino agrees with Juana and buries the pearl on the beach.

     Didn't happen

     Kino refuses Juana's plea, saying, "This is our one chance"; the pearl stays buried under his sleeping-mat until he digs it up at dawn.

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10. 10

    Question 10. What does 'semblance' mean as used in 'to give a semblance of competition'?

    • Correct answer: An outward appearance or show of something, often not real
    • A gathering of people met together for a common purpose
    • A group of musicians who perform a piece of music together
    • A strong likeness between two people, such as a parent and child

    A semblance is an outward look of something, a show without the substance. The separate offices make it look as if the pearl buyers compete, when in fact one man owns them all.

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11. 11

    Question 11. What does 'colonial' mean when Steinbeck calls the town a 'colonial animal' in Chapter 3?

    • Relating to a colonel, the military officer who commands a regiment, or to the soldiers he leads
    • Decorated with a long row of columns, like the entrance of a church or a courthouse
    • Relating to a society controlled by an outside power, often through an extractive economy
    • Correct answer: Made up of many separate living creatures joined together and acting as one body

    Steinbeck means the biological sense. A colonial animal, like a coral or a sponge, is a colony of small creatures living as one body, and the next sentences give the town a nervous system, a head, shoulders and feet, and a single emotion. The town reacts to Kino's pearl as one organism.

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12. 12

    Question 12. What does 'shrilling' mean in 'the evil song was in his ears, shrilling against the music of the pearl'?

    • Humming softly in a low, soothing tone
    • Shaking or trembling from cold or sudden fear
    • Correct answer: Sounding in a high, sharp, piercing tone
    • Growing smaller or drawing back in fear

    To shrill is to sound high, sharp and piercing. The music of evil is not a vague feeling here but a sound in Kino's ears, cutting against the music of the pearl as he glances about suspiciously.

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