36 pages • 1 hour read
Scott O'DellThe Black Pearl
Fiction | Novella | Middle Grade | Published in 1967A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 4-6Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 4 Summary
Four days later, Ramón notices Luzon—a man with a red canoe—approach the coast. Ramón hopes that he has come to sell them a fine pearl, as the ones they found on their last trip were all poor quality. Luzon questions why the fleet of ships is fishing around Maldonado instead of the coast, and Ramón makes up an excuse; he does not tell Luzon that the fishing in their area is poor, but instead that they are searching for black pearls. Luzon sells Ramón a beautiful black pearl for 200 pesos. Ramón spends 50 more pesos than his father would have given so that he can ask Luzon to teach him how to dive; he wants to find a large black pearl and promises to pay Luzon for what it is worth if he finds it. Luzon agrees, and Ramón locks up the business and readies himself to leave.
Chapter 5 Summary
The sea is turbulent when Luzon and Ramón make their way to the lagoon. It is nearly dawn by the time that they arrive. The lagoon’s entrance is hidden by rocks and opens to a narrow channel; this continues for half a mile before leading into an oval lagoon surrounded by steep hills and covered in black sand. Though Ramón knows that many lagoons on their coast look like this one, he feels unsettled the moment that they arrive. Luzon and Ramón do not speak until they begin to walk to the huts. Luzon warns Ramón not to speak while they are diving because of the Manta Diablo, who listens from and lives in a cave in the lagoon. Ramón is convinced this is indigenous superstition. Luzon explains that there is another secret opening in the channel that the Manta Diablo travels through.
Ramón and Luzon eat breakfast, sleep, and eat again before departing for the pearling reefs. Luzon tells Ramón that when the mist is gone, the Manta Diablo will be too, but that they cannot speak too freely because the other marine creatures are its friends and will tell it everything they say. He also says that the Manta Diablo can take the form of different creatures, including humans, to exact revenge on pearlers who have done him wrong. Luzon is not afraid of El Diablo, however, as his family has a pact with it; in exchange for mutual respect, it allows Luzon to dive for the black pearls that belong to it.
Luzon teaches Ramón how to dive for pearls by showing him how to breathe, expand his lungs, walk along the lagoon floor, and pry shells open. He warns him to be careful where he places his hands and feet, because burro shells can wound people badly. They dive together for three days; on the fourth, Ramón goes to dive for pearls alone and finds the Pearl of Heaven.
Chapter 6 Summary
The night before the fourth day, Luzon tells Ramón that neither he nor his family has ever gone diving for pearls in the Manta Diablo’s cave. Luzon fears the Manta Diablo’s wrath and tells Ramón that if he goes there to dive, he does so alone.
The next morning, Luzon claims that a wound on his hand hurts him and stays behind. Ramón dives into the cave many times, unable to pry the large shells free from the rocks. By the late afternoon, his hands begin to bleed and his eyes sting from the salt water. Though he considers giving up, Ramón thinks of the Sevillano’s smugness and dives one last time. This time, he finds a shell so heavy that he is unable to lift it into the canoe.
Luzon pretends not to care about Ramón’s findings so as not to offend the Manta Diablo; he says that the oyster is one of the biggest that he has ever seen, and that if there are even bigger ones in the cave, the Manta Diablo will surely not be upset at losing just one. However, Luzon refuses to give Ramón his knife, so it takes Ramón a long time to open the oyster. After removing three small pearls, Ramón finds a large pearl that is the size of a rock and beautiful and smoky in color. Darkness falls and Ramón wraps the pearl in his shirt. Though he tries to hand it to Luzon, the older man recoils in fear, saying that they’d best hurry to La Paz before El Diablo returns.
Chapters 4-6 Analysis
The rising action of a typical narrative arc precedes a novel’s climax or main conflict. This section represents the rising action portion of The Black Pearl’s narrative arc. In the first few chapters, O’Dell establishes the novel’s setting and Ramón’s characterization. In his eagerness to please his father, to become strong, and to be a prized diver and overtake the Sevillano, Ramón reveals his ambitious nature. This characterization develops further in this section of the novel, where Ramón is wily—almost conniving—in his desire to improve as a diver. Ramón gives Luzon an extra 50 pesos to convince him to teach him how to dive, knowing that his father and mother would disapprove. Luzon himself points this out, saying, “I have heard your father say many times, since the time you were a child, that he did not raise you to drown in the sea or to give an arm or a leg to a burro shell” (28). However, Ramón is unmoved and retorts that neither his father nor his mother will know, as they are in Cerralvo and Loreto respectively.
By going directly against his father’s wishes, Ramón’s motivation as a character evolves. Though he wants to take over the business and make his father proud, his individual pride begins to become a greater priority. Throughout this section, Ramón thinks about the satisfaction he would feel at one-upping the Sevillano, fantasizing about “how surprised [Ruiz] would be when he came back from Cerralvo and found the whole town of La Paz talking about the monster pearl Ramón Salazar had found” (30). Although Ramón knows for a fact that the Sevillano has never been to Seville or Persia, he is still determined to one-up the lies that the other man has told.
Foreshadowing also contributes to the novel’s rising action. Dread mounts from the moment Ramón enters the lagoon. Unlike the rowdy fishing aboard his father’s fleet, the diving in the lagoon is done in almost complete silence. Despite the Manta Diablo’s absence, Luzon and Ramón live in its shadow while at the lagoon, whispering in case its other aquatic friends tell it what has been said. The lagoon also contains many dangers besides the Manta Diablo, including burro shells that can take a limb.
Despite this, and despite the fear that Luzon shows in diving inside the cave, Ramón’s ambition propels him forward. Luzon refuses to have anything to do with the pearl Ramón finds, going as far as to insist that he use his own knife to crack the shell despite how blunt it has become; this terror in a character who isn’t generally timid further hints at the Manta Diablo’s power. When Ramón removes the Pearl of Heaven, the tone of the novel shifts drastically, contrasting with the character’s joy and elation; immediately after he declares it to be the Pearl of Heaven, “Darkness [falls]” (40). This foreshadows something worse to come and implies that the pearl may not be of heavenly origins at all. The section ends with a terrified Luzon refusing to touch the pearl and insisting that they travel to La Paz before the Manta Diablo returns. The tone of the novel thus darkens and becomes more urgent as it propels the reader forward into the next act.
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By Scott O'Dell
