Steinbeck’s Mexican Pearl: From Source Material to Anti-Fascist Parable

Abstract There is a consensus that Steinbeck based The Pearl on a folk tale he encountered during his travels with Ed Ricketts in the Sea of Cortez. However, since the 1950s, scholars of Mexican literature have claimed that Steinbeck used Dr. Atl’s 1936 short story, “El hombre y la perla,” as source material for his own pearl narrative. The connection between the two stories appears exclusively in scholarship about Dr. Atl and is often mentioned in passing. First, this article shows how Steinbeck’s retelling of his encounter with the pearl folk tale obscured the relationship between his story and Dr. Atl’s. It subsequently offers a comparative reading of the two stories to reveal their many similarities, supporting the claim of literary influence. Last, the article argues that through his reworking of “El hombre y la perla,” Steinbeck transformed the original narrative into a broader critique of colonialism and of the fascist politics that Dr. Atl embraced during the 1930s and 1940s.