Fiction and the novel: The Pearl (Q3 B)

How FBISE tests fictionOften examined

Fiction carries 7 or 8 marks in every paper. In Section A, 1 to 3 of the 20 MCQs test the elements of fiction: exposition, setting, climax, conflict, character types and point of view. In Section B, Q3 B gives two questions on a novel; you answer one in 90 to 120 words for 6 marks.

You may use any novel you have read, but the novel in the NBF Grade 12 textbook is The Pearl by John Steinbeck, so these notes use it for every answer. The textbook's short story After Twenty Years by O. Henry is given as a second example. (FBISE's own model solution used Lord of the Flies, which shows that any genuine novel is accepted.)

Fiction, the novel and the short story

Fiction is writing about imaginary people and events. Even when it is set in a real place, like La Paz in Mexico, the story itself is invented. Fiction teaches through a story instead of through facts.

Fiction

Prose writing that tells an imagined story, such as a novel or a short story.

Novel

A long work of fiction with many characters, several events and a full plot. Example: The Pearl (in fact a short novel, or novella).

Novella

A short novel, longer than a short story but shorter than a normal novel. The Pearl, with only six short chapters, is often called a novella.

Short story

A brief work of fiction that can be read at one sitting, usually with one main event and a few characters. Example: After Twenty Years.

Parable

A simple story that teaches a moral or spiritual lesson. Steinbeck calls The Pearl a parable.

Narrative

Any account of connected events; the story as it is told.

Narrator

The voice that tells the story. It is not always the author.

Every work of fiction is built from the same elements: plot, conflict, setting, characters, point of view and theme. Tone, mood, symbolism, foreshadowing and irony are the tools the writer uses to shape these elements.

Plot and Freytag's pyramidOften examined

Plot is the sequence of connected events in a story, linked by cause and effect. The German writer Gustav Freytag showed that most plots rise to a peak and then fall, like a pyramid. FBISE uses his stages in both the MCQs and Q3 B.

Exposition

The beginning of a story that introduces the characters, setting and basic situation.

Inciting incident

The event that sets the main conflict in motion.

Rising action

The series of complications between the inciting incident and the climax.

Climax

The turning point: the moment of greatest tension or emotion, where the main conflict comes to a head.

Falling action

The events after the climax that lead to the ending.

Resolution / denouement

The end of the story, where the conflict is settled. Denouement is a French word meaning "untying" (of the knot of the plot).

Conflict: internal and externalOften examined

Conflict is the struggle between two opposing forces. It is the engine of the plot: no problem, no story. A cricket match is exciting only because two teams want opposite results; a story is exciting for the same reason.

Internal conflict

A struggle within a character's own mind (man vs self).

External conflict

A struggle between a character and an outside force: another person, society, nature, fate or technology.

SettingOften examined

Setting is the time, place and social environment in which a story happens. It is more than a backdrop: a good setting creates mood, puts pressure on the characters and supports the theme.

What setting does in a story

• Creates mood. A dark, empty street on a stormy night builds fear; a sunny beach builds calm.
• Creates isolation or tension. A remote cabin far from town cuts a character off from help. In The Pearl, the hot, bare mountains leave Kino's family alone with the trackers.
• Shapes character. Kino's poverty and his life by the sea make him a humble fisherman who dreams of escape.
• Causes events. The unfair society explains why the doctor refuses to treat Coyotito and why the pearl buyers dare to cheat Kino.
• Supports the theme. The divided town (brush houses against stone houses) shows oppression; the misty Gulf, where sights look unreal, shows false dreams.

Types of characterOften examined

A character is a person (or sometimes an animal) who takes part in a story. FBISE asks you to classify characters in pairs.

Protagonist

The central character of a story.

Antagonist

The person or force working against the protagonist.

Round character

A fully developed character with many sides.

Flat character

A character with only one or two traits; also called a stock or type character when he fits a familiar type.

Dynamic character

A character who changes significantly during the story.

Static character

A character who does not change.

Foil

A character used to show up another character by contrast.

Characterization: direct and indirect

Characterization is the way a writer shows what a character is like. There are two methods.

Direct characterization

The writer or narrator tells us a trait openly. Example: "This doctor was of a race which for nearly four hundred years had beaten and starved and robbed and despised Kino's race."

Indirect characterization

The writer shows the trait, and the reader works it out from what the character says, thinks, does and looks like, and from how others react.

Character development is the change in a character across the story (see dynamic characters). In an answer, show three points: what the character is like at the start, what changes him, and what he is like at the end.

Point of view

Point of view is the position from which a story is told: who the narrator is and how much he knows.

Theme, subject, moral, tone and mood

Subject

What the story is about, in a word or phrase: greed, family, a pearl.

Theme

What the story says about life through its subject, in a full sentence: "Greed destroys the very things a person loves."

Moral

A direct lesson on how to behave: "Be content with what you have." A fable states its moral; a novel usually leaves the theme for the reader to find.

Tone

The writer's attitude towards the subject or the reader: serious, ironic, sympathetic, bitter, humorous.

Mood (atmosphere)

The feeling the story creates in the reader: peaceful, tense, gloomy, fearful, hopeful.

Foreshadowing, flashback, symbolism and irony

Foreshadowing

A hint of what will happen later. In The Pearl, the scorpion and the Song of Evil foreshadow the evil the pearl will bring.

Flashback

A scene that interrupts the story to show something that happened earlier. In After Twenty Years, Bob's account of the promise made twenty years ago takes us back into the past. In The Pearl, Juan Tomás recalls how pearl agents once disappeared.

Symbol / symbolism

An object, person or event that stands for a larger idea. The pearl stands for hope and then for greed; the canoe for tradition.

Irony

A contrast between what is expected and what really happens, or between what is said and what is meant.

Verbal irony

Saying the opposite of what one means: calling a rainy Eid day "lovely weather".

Situational irony

An outcome opposite to what was expected: Bob comes to meet his friend and is arrested because of that friend.

Dramatic irony

The reader knows something a character does not: we see the doctor's greed while Kino still hopes.

Twist ending

A sudden, surprising ending that changes how we see the whole story, as in After Twenty Years.

Climax, anticlimax and tragedyOften examined

Climax

The turning point of a story: the moment of greatest tension, when the main conflict comes to a head and the hero's fate is decided.

Anticlimax

A sudden drop from something serious, exciting or highly expected to something weak, trivial or disappointing. It can be a let-down in the plot or a comic drop in a sentence: "He lost his country, his family and his umbrella."

Tragedy

A serious story in which the main character suffers and falls, often through a weakness (a tragic flaw) or forces beyond his control, so that the reader feels pity and fear.

Tragic flaw

The weakness in a good character that leads to his downfall. Kino's is pride mixed with growing greed.

"Conflict is the soul of tragedy"

A tragedy needs a struggle between opposing forces, because without conflict there is no suffering and no downfall. The conflict gives the tragedy its life, just as the soul gives life to the body. In The Pearl, Kino's conflicts with nature (the scorpion), society (the doctor and the pearl buyers), other men (the attackers and trackers) and himself (greed against love) lead step by step to the loss of his canoe, his house and his son.

The Pearl: author and background

John Steinbeck (1902 to 1968) was an American novelist from California. He wrote about poor and ordinary working people and the injustice they face. His best-known books are Of Mice and Men (1937) and The Grapes of Wrath (1939). He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1962.

The Pearl was published as a book in 1947. In 1940 Steinbeck sailed in the Gulf of California (the Sea of Cortez) with his friend Ed Ricketts, a marine biologist. In La Paz he heard a local folk tale about an Indian boy who found a great pearl, was ruined by it and threw it back into the sea. He retold the tale as a short novel, first printed in a magazine in 1945 as "The Pearl of the World", and it was also made into a Mexican film in 1947.

Steinbeck calls the book a parable in his opening note: because the story has been told so often, it has only "good and bad things and black and white things", and "If this story is a parable, perhaps everyone takes his own meaning from it and reads his own life into it." This is why the characters are simple and the message is clear.

The Pearl: chapter-by-chapter summaryOften examined

Chapter 1: the scorpion and the doctor

Kino, a young Indian pearl diver, wakes at dawn in his brush house by the beach near La Paz. His wife Juana is grinding corn, and their baby Coyotito sleeps in a box hanging from the roof. Kino hears the Song of the Family in his mind and feels content. Suddenly a scorpion crawls down the rope towards the box. Kino hears the Song of Evil. Before he can catch it, Coyotito shakes the rope, the scorpion falls and stings him on the shoulder. Kino crushes it, and Juana sucks out the poison. She demands the doctor, which shocks the neighbours, because the doctor has never come to their brush houses. The family, followed by the neighbours, walks into the town. At the doctor's gate Kino speaks humbly. The doctor, lying in bed in a silk gown drinking chocolate, asks whether they can pay. Kino offers eight small, ugly seed pearls. The servant returns to say the doctor has gone out. In anger and shame, Kino strikes the gate and splits his knuckles.

Chapter 2: the finding of the pearl

Kino and Juana go to the beach and to Kino's canoe, the one thing of value he owns, passed down from his grandfather. Juana puts a poultice of brown seaweed on Coyotito's swollen shoulder. Kino dives for oysters while the Song of the Pearl That Might Be grows in his mind, and Juana prays for a pearl to pay the doctor. Kino finds a very large oyster and opens it last. Inside is a huge, perfect pearl, "as large as a sea-gull's egg", "the greatest pearl in the world". Kino howls with joy, and the neighbours run to see. Juana notices that Coyotito's swelling is going down.

Chapter 3: dreams and dangers

The news spreads through La Paz before Kino even reaches home. The priest thinks of repairs to the church, the shopkeepers of goods to sell, the doctor of Paris, the beggars of alms and the pearl buyers of profit. Everyone now wants something from Kino. In front of his brother Juan Tomás and the neighbours, Kino speaks his dreams: a wedding in the church, new clothes, a harpoon, a rifle, and school for Coyotito so that he can read and write. The priest visits and reminds Kino to give thanks. Then the doctor arrives, says the poison may still strike, and gives Coyotito a white powder. The baby becomes sick within an hour, and the doctor returns to "cure" him, asking about payment. Kino's eyes flick towards the corner where he has buried the pearl, and he later hides it under his sleeping mat. That night an intruder enters the house. Kino fights him and is struck on the head. Juana says the pearl is evil, "like a sin", and begs him to throw it back into the sea. Kino refuses: he will fight and win.

Chapter 4: the pearl buyers

Next morning the whole neighbourhood follows Kino to the pearl buyers. Juan Tomás reminds him of the old days, when the Indians sent an agent to sell their pearls in the capital and the agent was never heard of again. The buyers, who all secretly work for one master, pretend the pearl is too large to be valuable, "a curiosity". The first offers 1,000 pesos, and others value it even lower. Kino, who hoped for 50,000, knows he is being cheated. He says he will take the pearl to the capital, and the buyer then offers 1,500, but Kino walks out. Juan Tomás warns him that he has defied "the whole structure, the whole way of life". That night Kino is attacked again outside his house. Juana begs him to destroy the pearl, but he answers, "I am a man," and decides to go to the capital in the morning.

Chapter 5: violence and loss

Late at night Juana quietly takes the pearl to throw it into the sea. Kino follows, catches her at the water's edge, strikes her in the face and kicks her. On his way back he is attacked by dark figures and kills one of them with his knife. The pearl is knocked into the path, where Juana finds it beside the dead man. She knows their old life is over. Kino discovers that someone has smashed a hole in the bottom of his canoe, a crime worse to him than killing a man. Then he sees that his brush house has been set on fire. The family hides for a day in Juan Tomás's house while Juan Tomás tells the neighbours they may have drowned. Kino refuses to give up the pearl: "This pearl has become my soul. If I give it up I shall lose my soul." At night they leave La Paz.

Chapter 6: the flight and the return

Kino, Juana and Coyotito travel north towards Loreto, resting by day and walking by night. Kino discovers three trackers following them: two on foot and a horseman with a rifle. The family climbs into the mountains to a pool of water among the rocks, and hides in a small cave above it. The trackers camp beside the pool. At night Kino takes off his white clothes and creeps down to attack. Coyotito gives a little cry. One tracker, thinking it is a coyote pup, fires his rifle towards the cave. Kino leaps on the men and kills all three. Then he hears Juana's cry of death: Coyotito has been shot through the head. The next afternoon Kino and Juana walk back into La Paz side by side, Juana carrying the dead baby in her shawl and Kino carrying the rifle. The town watches in silence. At the shore Kino offers the pearl to Juana, but she says, "No, you." Seeing only ugliness and death in it, he throws it far into the sea, where it settles into the sand. "And the music of the pearl drifted to a whisper and disappeared."

The Pearl: plot stages mapped to eventsOften examined

The Pearl: charactersOften examined

Kino (protagonist, round, dynamic)

A young, poor Indian pearl diver. At the start he is content, humble and devoted to his family; he hears music in his mind (the songs). He is also proud and quick to anger: he strikes the doctor's gate. The pearl awakens ambition (a church wedding, a rifle, education for Coyotito), and then greed, suspicion and violence. He refuses to sell cheaply, says "I am a man", beats Juana and kills four men. Hunted in the mountains he becomes almost an animal. After Coyotito's death he sees the pearl's evil and throws it away, sadder and wiser. His tragic flaw is pride that turns into greed.

Juana (major, round, partly dynamic; a foil to Kino)

Kino's wife and Coyotito's mother. She is brave, practical, patient and loyal. She sucks the poison from Coyotito's shoulder and demands the doctor. She is the first to see that the pearl is evil ("like a sin") and tries to throw it into the sea. She is also religious and prays, and she uses old magic too. Though Kino beats her, she forgives him and stays with him, even refusing to be left behind in the mountains. At the end she walks beside Kino, not behind him, showing her new equal place, and she lets him decide the pearl's fate.

Coyotito (minor, flat, static)

Kino and Juana's baby son. His name means "little coyote". He stands for innocence and the family's future: Kino wants the pearl mainly to give him an education. The scorpion's sting at the start and the rifle bullet at the end both strike him, so the innocent suffer for the evil around them.

Juan Tomás (minor, static)

Kino's brother. He is wise, cautious and loyal. He warns Kino about the pearl buyers and reminds him of the lost agents of the past. He tells Kino he has defied "the whole structure, the whole way of life". Even though it is dangerous, he hides the family after their house burns and helps them escape.

Apolonia (minor, flat)

Juan Tomás's wife, a large, warm-hearted woman. She represents the warm, emotional community of the poor. When the brush house burns, she mourns loudly for the family, as custom demands.

The doctor (antagonist, flat, static)

A wealthy, lazy colonial who dreams of his old life in Paris. He is greedy, cruel and racist: "I am a doctor, not a veterinary." He refuses to treat Coyotito without money but rushes to Kino's house when he hears of the pearl, seems to make the baby sick with a white powder and then "cures" him. He symbolizes colonial oppression.

The priest (minor, flat, static)

He thinks of the repairs the church needs when he hears of the pearl. He reminds Kino to give thanks and to remember the church. He represents a religion that serves the rich and tells the poor to accept their place.

The pearl buyers (minor, flat, static; antagonists)

They seem to compete but all work for one master. They pretend the great pearl is too big to be valuable and offer 1,000 pesos. They represent an unfair economic system that cheats the poor.

The trackers (antagonists, flat)

Three men (two trackers on foot and a horseman with a rifle) who follow Kino's family into the mountains. They are hardly described, like dark, hunting animals. They represent the hidden power of the rich, which will not let a poor man escape with wealth. One of them fires the shot that kills Coyotito.

Other minor characters

The beggars at the church know everyone's business and act like a chorus. The neighbours follow and comment on every event. The doctor's servant is of Kino's own race but lies for his master.

The Pearl: setting and its effectOften examined

Time: Steinbeck does not give a date. The world of the story (colonial Spanish masters, Indian divers, rifles, pesos) suggests the early twentieth century. Many key scenes happen at dawn (peace and hope) or at night (danger, attacks, the climax).

Mood: the opening dawn is peaceful; after the pearl, the nights are tense and fearful; the mountain chase is hot, desperate and tragic; the return is silent and sorrowful.

The Pearl: conflicts, climax and resolutionOften examined

Main conflict: Kino, a poor Indian, against a greedy, unjust society that will not let him rise, and against the greed that grows inside him.

Climax: the night fight at the mountain pool, when Kino kills the three trackers and a rifle shot kills Coyotito. Resolution: Kino and Juana return to La Paz, and Kino throws the pearl back into the sea.

Anticlimax: the scene at the pearl buyers. The whole town follows Kino, expecting a fortune, but the buyers call the pearl a mere curiosity and offer 1,000 pesos. The ending is also anticlimactic: the greatest pearl in the world simply sinks back into the sand, and Kino is poorer than when he began.

The Pearl: themesOften examined

The Pearl: symbols, songs, point of view and titleOften examined

Point of view

The Pearl is told in the third person omniscient. The narrator follows Kino most closely and describes the songs in his head, but also enters the minds of Juana, the doctor, the priest, the pearl buyers and even the town, which is described as a living animal with a nervous system. This lets us see the greed of the whole society, not just Kino's feelings.

Significance of the title

The title names the object that drives the plot and carries the theme. The pearl causes every event after Chapter 2, it is the central symbol, and its changing meaning (hope, then greed and death) traces Kino's change. The story ends when the pearl returns to the sea.

Tone and foreshadowing

The tone is serious, simple and sympathetic to the poor, like a folk tale or parable. Foreshadowing is everywhere: the opening note ("how it was found and how it was lost again"), the scorpion, the Song of Evil, Juana's warnings, Juan Tomás's story of the lost agents, and Coyotito's name, which echoes the tracker's words "coyote pup".

Second example: After Twenty Years (O. Henry)

O. Henry (William Sydney Porter, 1862 to 1910) was an American short-story writer famous for surprise (twist) endings. After Twenty Years (1906) is in the NBF Grade 12 textbook.

Summary

At about 10 o'clock on a cold, windy, rainy night, a policeman walks his beat in a New York street. In the dark doorway of a closed hardware shop he finds a man with an unlit cigar. The man explains that twenty years ago, on this spot where "Big Joe" Brady's restaurant stood, he and his best friend Jimmy Wells promised to meet again after twenty years. He went West and became rich; he wears a diamond pin and a watch set with diamonds. The policeman walks on. After twenty minutes a tall man in a long overcoat arrives and greets him as Bob. They walk arm in arm, but under the bright lights of a drug store Bob sees the man is not Jimmy: "Twenty years is a long time, but not long enough to change a man's nose from a Roman to a pug." The stranger says "Silky" Bob has been under arrest for ten minutes, because the Chicago police want him. He hands Bob a note from Jimmy: Jimmy was the policeman at the door. When Bob struck a match, Jimmy recognized the face of the wanted man, but he could not arrest his old friend himself, so he sent a plain-clothes officer.

Writing the 90 to 120 word answerOften examined

Every Q3 B answer follows the same three-part plan, the plan used in the FBISE model solution: define the term, explain its role, then prove it with the novel.

Key terms

Fiction

Prose that tells an imagined story, such as a novel or a short story.

Novel

A long work of fiction with a full plot and many characters.

Novella

A short novel, such as The Pearl.

Short story

A brief work of fiction with one main event and few characters, such as After Twenty Years.

Parable

A simple story that teaches a moral or spiritual lesson.

Narrator

The voice that tells the story.

Plot

The sequence of connected events in a story.

Freytag's pyramid

A diagram of plot: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action and resolution.

Exposition

The opening part of a story that introduces the characters, setting and basic situation.

Inciting incident

The event that starts the main conflict.

Rising action

The chain of complications that builds tension towards the climax.

Climax

The turning point and moment of greatest tension in a story.

Falling action

The events after the climax that lead to the ending.

Resolution

The end of the story, where the conflict is settled.

Denouement

Another name for the resolution; French for "untying".

Anticlimax

A sudden fall from high expectation or tension to something weak or disappointing.

Conflict

The struggle between two opposing forces in a story.

Internal conflict

A struggle within a character's mind (man vs self).

External conflict

A struggle between a character and an outside force: another person, society, nature, fate or technology.

Man vs self

Internal conflict: fear, guilt, temptation or a hard choice.

Man vs man

External conflict between two characters.

Man vs society

External conflict between a character and the rules, customs or powers of society.

Man vs nature

External conflict between a character and natural forces.

Man vs fate

External conflict between a character and destiny or supernatural forces.

Man vs technology

External conflict between a character and machines or inventions.

Setting

The time, place and social environment in which a story happens.

Mood

The feeling or atmosphere a story creates in the reader.

Tone

The writer's attitude towards the subject or the reader.

Character

A person, or sometimes an animal, who takes part in a story.

Protagonist

The main character, whose struggle drives the story.

Antagonist

The character or force that opposes the protagonist.

Major character

An important character who appears often and affects the plot.

Minor character

A less important character who supports the plot or theme.

Round character

A complex character with many traits.

Flat character

A simple character with one or two traits.

Dynamic character

A character who changes significantly during the story.

Static character

A character who stays the same throughout the story.

Foil

A character who highlights another character's traits by contrast.

Characterization

The way a writer presents a character.

Direct characterization

The writer states a character's traits openly.

Indirect characterization

The writer shows traits through speech, thoughts, effect on others, actions and looks (STEAL).

Character development

The change in a character's thoughts, values or behaviour over a story.

Point of view

The position from which a story is told.

First person

Point of view in which the narrator says "I" and takes part in the story.

Second person

Point of view in which the narrator addresses the reader as "you".

Third person limited

Point of view in which an outside narrator knows the thoughts of one character only.

Third person omniscient

Point of view in which an all-knowing outside narrator knows every character's thoughts.

Theme

The central message or idea about life in a story, stated as a sentence.

Subject

What a story is about, in a word or phrase.

Moral

A direct lesson about how to behave.

Foreshadowing

A hint of what will happen later in a story.

Flashback

A scene that interrupts the story to show an earlier event.

Symbolism

The use of an object, person or event to stand for a larger idea.

Irony

A contrast between what is expected and what actually happens, or between what is said and what is meant.

Situational irony

An outcome opposite to what was expected.

Dramatic irony

The reader knows something that a character does not.

Verbal irony

Saying the opposite of what one means.

Twist ending

A surprising ending that changes the meaning of the whole story.

Tragedy

A serious story in which the main character suffers and falls, arousing pity and fear.

Tragic flaw

The weakness in a good character that leads to his downfall.

FBISE paper questions

Questions from the FBISE HSSC-II 2026 (1st Annual) papers, the old-syllabus paper and FBISE model papers that belong to this unit, answered the way an examiner expects.

Exam focus

1. Climax (and climax vs anticlimax) with reference to The Pearl (short)
   Asked in Set A and the old syllabus paper in 2026, and in MCQ form in Set D.
   Go to answer
2. Role of the main character in a novel (Kino) (short)
   Set in both Set D and the old syllabus paper in 2026.
   Go to answer
3. Setting: definition, influence on theme, background for the action (short)
   Model paper Q3 B (i), Set D Q3 B (i), and three MCQs (Set B 20, model (xix)).
   Go to answer
4. Conflict, its types and "conflict is the soul of tragedy" (short)
   Set B and Set A Q3 B, plus the internal/external MCQ trap on the model paper and Set A.
   Go to answer
5. Exposition, rising action and resolution (short)
   Set B Q3 B (ii) and model Q3 B (ii); exposition was also three MCQs in 2026.
   Go to answer
6. Internal vs external conflict MCQs (guilt, dilemmas vs a bullied teenager) (mcq)
   The trap appears on the model paper and in Set A 2026.
   Go to answer
7. Point of view, especially second person and third person omniscient (mcq)
   Old syllabus MCQ 10; The Pearl is omniscient.
   Go to answer
8. Character development and dynamic vs static characters (short)
   Named in the SLOs and the framework; Set A MCQ 11 asked for a dynamic character.
   Go to answer
9. Plot stages of The Pearl mapped to events (short)
   Any stage can be asked; the table gives the evidence for every plot question.
   Go to answer