As Steinbeck mentioned in his introduction to this novel, "If this story is a parable, perhaps everyone takes his own meaning from it and reads his own life into it." Likewise, as was noted in the introduction to these Notes, there are many different critical approaches. The following interpretation is only one of many which the novel can support, and it need not be seen as the only definitive approach.
Basically, there are two forces working through the novel — primitive man alone with his labors, toiling close to nature and possessing an innate dignity; and opposing him, man as a predator, as a parasite or a vampire, sucking at the vein of life and bringing about death and destruction to the more primitive unit.
The first group is, of course, represented by Kino, his family and his friends who make up the primitive community of fishermen and divers. When we are first introduced to Kino's world, it is warm and content, bathed with the beautiful Song of the Family, which gently soothes his heart and makes his life seem fulfilled. Kino and Juana speak very little to each other — it is as though there is no need for words — their communication is innocent and innately understood. In contrast, there is the world of the pearl buyers and the world of the doctor and the priest, representatives of the world with whom Kino and Juana cannot communicate. This is a world which feeds parasitically on these simple people of Kino's village; the doctor's avarice, for example, sends numerous corpses to the church, and the priest is only a puppet of the pearl buyers who are, in turn, only fingers on the arms of some unknown force which has no concern for Kino's class of people.
