God, glory and gold. These are the three Gs of European colonization, and the same three Gs that would lead to the destruction of entire civilizations of native peoples and their forced subjugation to European ethnic and socioeconomic forces for hundreds of years. Among these forces was the power of Spain and this nation's role in destruction and hegemony over native Mexicans; the drive towards colonial rule led to the downfall and dehumanization of millions of people. This is the story of Western civilization and indeed the story depicted in John Steinbeck's short story The Pearl, with the narrative of Kino and his people against the oppressive members of his community. But beyond literally illustrating this story, Steinbeck uses several literary elements to convey the complex yet destructive toll of ethnocentric oppression. Therefore, in the short story The Pearl, Steinbeck uses elements such as imagery and symbolism to demonstrate ethnocentric constructs that work against the native Mexicans. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay At the heart of the toll of Kino's ethnocentric constructs and oppression of the natives is the way Steinbeck uses imagery to convey the Kino people's general subservience and attitude towards the dominant Spaniards. In chapter three, following the doctor's mischievous encounter with Coyotito as a “patient” after Kino finds the pearl, a scene is described in which, “in the estuary a thick school of small fish glistened and broke the water to escape to a school of large fish. fish that came to eat them." The scene then further describes how the smaller fish made "swishing noises" as they ran away from the more obvious "splashes" of the large fish, with an apparent aura of distant chaos to the people in their bush homes. While the sound may be distant, it is indeed still evident among the villagers as the “slaughter” continues in the estuary. With this, Steinbeck uses sound and visual elements, with the size of the fish and their more or less important sounds, to illustrate a common and central theme in the story. The big fish are the hunters, the oppressors, and with their deliberation they could easily overwhelm the small fish with seemingly natural speech. This is the parallel and the difficult situation that the people of Kino also face. There are people hunted, overwhelmed and weak just as small fish are, and just as larger fish cause ripples and bring sounds and visions of distant and seemingly irrelevant chaos, they are the same sounds of hunting, predator and prey that Kino also faces. This point is only further exemplified by another example on the same page, where: “Moisture came out of the Gulf and settled on the bushes and cacti and saplings in salty drops. And the night mice crawled on the ground and the little nighthawks hunted them silently. (Steinbeck 33) This also illustrates the fundamental way in which Steinbeck uses imagery to highlight the oppression of Kino's people. Even though night seems to fall peacefully and even beautifully on the village, the little mice hide for their lives during the hunt. Despite the situations at hand, the immediate peace of what is seen in Kino Village, there is a dark predator. There is prey, and this prey is much more than small and large fish, weak mice and valiant hawks. The prey is also Kino's people. The oppressive forces that contend with Kino's people, however, are much more than predators of a seemingly silent nature. It is they who degrade Kino as they hunt him down and deceive him for his pearl. Mainly amongforces of oppression against Kino's people is the doctor, who brings with him the general consensus of being a selfish and generally unpleasant man. Kino, seemingly from the beginning, is in conflict with the doctor. Even after Coyotito is bitten by a scorpion and requires medical attention from the man, he observes: “Is there anything better to do than treat insect bites for the 'little Indians'? I am a doctor, not a veterinarian” (Steinbeck 11). This quote in itself shows the attitude towards natives that this man possesses. Not only is he self-centered, but he doesn't respect any value towards the life and health of the natives, almost as if he doesn't even see them as human beings. However, this rejection of any reasonable importance of Kino and his people only exists when Kino is without wealth and without his pearl. As news of Kino's great discovery spreads throughout the city, not only do many others become interested in Kino, but many (like the doctor) begin to see how they can personally profit from it. In fact, immediately after the news reached the doctor, he declared that Kino “is a client of mine,” and “he looked past his elderly patient and saw himself sitting in a restaurant in Paris and a waiter was just opening a bottle of wine ” (Steinbeck 22). This quote itself demonstrates the doctor's now greedy and renewed opinion of Kino and his family. While in the beginning they were poor and seemingly worthless, with a new wave of impending wealth they have become patients and indeed the doctor is interested, not because he truly cares about their health or even their life, but he sees what he sees beyond his elderly patient – ​​a life of luxury and profit from a stranger's personal fortune. However, it is crucial to understand that the doctor is not truly a miraculous example of hatred and greed towards the natives, but rather represents a powerful force that dictates and represents only the hateful and greedy notions against Kino's people. It represents the humiliation, degradation and subhuman idealisms present in the community's elite. It demonstrates not only a fundamental tension of selfishness and appropriation, but also of ethnocentric and economic structures set against Native people in hopes of suppressing and ultimately alienating them. However, the Doctor also represents the prevailing inverse against these constructs in times of Kino's impending wealth. It represents deception, exploitation and appropriation. He is willing to reform his ideologies, at least begrudgingly, to profit from Kino and even resort to extreme and life-threatening means to get what he wants. First, he sees the people of Kino as animals, not worthy of even basic medical care, and exploitable resources with the pearl of Kino as a means to justify and finance his own luxury. He's not just a lazy, selfish doctor. He is the structure and society itself, all in an attempt to antagonize Kino and his people. All in all, however, the ultimate form of oppression and historical constructs against both Kino and his people lie beyond the rigid naturalist parallels of a distant yet near world. scene of predator and prey, and even beyond the greedy and symbolic role of the community doctor. The ultimate facilitator of both oppressive imagery and ethnocentric symbolism lies in Kino's pearl. Predominantly in the images regarding the pearl there is the stark contrast between how Kino saw the pearl at the beginning and its depiction at the end. First to discover the pearl in chapter three, Kino points out how "the music of the pearl had fused with the music of the family so that one embellished the other" (Steinbeck 24). This first illustrates how Kino saw the pearl and what he had hoped for in its image. He saw hope, a future, and with the Song of.