Week 4- Entry B

After finishing Empire Falls, I read The Pearl by John Steinbeck. It was a fabulous book! Last night, as I lay in bed trying to get to sleep, I was listening to the Into the Woods soundtrack. If you've never seen the play or the movie, it's a twisted fairy tale using characters from many classic stories. Anyways, as I was listening to the music, I realized some similarities of themes between The Pearl and Into the Woods.

One of themes both share is the grass isn't always greener on the other side. In The Pearl, Kino tries to improve his life using "the pearl of the world". He wants to sell it and make enough money to buy a rifle, marry his wife, and send his son to school, but the pearl only brings trouble. Kino and his wife Juana are disturbed by robbers trying to snatch the precious pearl. They find themselves fleeing the authorities after murdering a thief and ultimately there baby dies in the chase. The pearl brings evil instead of the expected riches and a better way of living. In Into the Woods, characters have the same glorified feelings. They want to get better lives, but they don't get what they expected. The witch wants to be beautiful, but once she gains beauty, she loses her magic.
Cinderella's evil step sisters also realize that what they were searching for wasn't worth the effort. They were both greedy and wanted Prince Charming, but instead they got blinded by Cinderella's birds. These characters all sing at the end of act 1:

We're/I'm unhappy now, unhappy hence,
As well as ever after.
Had we used our common sense,
Been worthy of our discontents,
We'd be happy.

Both The Pearl and Into the Woods made me think about perspective and point of view as well. Jack from Into the Woods needs to sell his cow, so he trades Milky White for five magic beans. The baker makes this trade believing that the beans are nothing but ordinary. He must do this to get the cow's milk to complete a potion and become fertile to have a child. The baker's wife convinces him that the ends justify the means in this situation. In The Pearl, Kino is ripped off by the doctor and pearl dealers. I know that these people are supposed to be well off and are portrayed as being evil, but what if they needed the money for an important reason? The Pearl is told from Kino's perspective and show the richer men as being selfish, but Into the Woods portrays a similar situation from the other person's side.

You should definately read The Pearl if you like Steinbeck! It's a really quick book that really gets you thinking.