John Steinbeck uses many examples of animal imagery to help readers better understand characters' motivations and the complexity of the situations in which they find themselves. The short novel The Pearl is an extremely complex and elaborate story that is littered with extensive character emotions and actions as well as confusing situations, which the animal imagery helps grasp in an understandable way. A good example of animal imagery that is applied to The Pearl is …showed first 75 words of 737 total…

…showed last 75 words of 737 total…to Kino. In other words, it's a warning that Kino should beware of traps and tricks that he could fall into in the near future, especially with people like the Spanish descendents who have an advantage to the Natives' ignorance. In conclusion, even a reader that has a tough time trying to grasp intricate situations and recognize character emotion and actions, can get a good understanding when animal imagery is applied to a complicated story.