The Black Pearl

“I do not know whether Father Linares saw it again or not, but I do know that while it lived there in the sea it lost the claws and forked tongue and the evil smell. It became the most beautiful creature I have ever seen. Yes, beautiful. And still it was the same evil thing that Father Linares banished from our land many years ago. This is strange.” 

This passage reflects conflict between the mythological beliefs of La Paz and the town’s Catholic faith. Neither the Manta Diablo nor the Madonna can destroy the other. Instead, they reach a strange equilibrium where the Madonna exists on land while the Manta Diablo claims the sea as his domain.

“If you go with the fleet […] then all the male members of the Salazar family will be on the sea at once. What happens if a storm comes up and drowns the both of us? I will tell you. It is the end of Salazar and Son. It is the end of everything I have worked for.” 

Blas wants nothing more than to ensure the future of the Salazar family, both in bloodline and in business. He is a prideful man and appears to see Ramón less as an individual and more as an extension of himself. This moment foreshadows Blas’s own death in the ocean and the transfer of the business to Ramón—the boy’s shift from being the “son” to “Salazar” himself.

“The one who just left us. Have you noticed the red hair that sticks up on his head like the comb of a rooster? Well, that comes from Africa. It is from the infidel blood of Moors and Berbers.” 

The racial politics in the novel center mostly on the relationship between the townsfolk and the indigenous communities that live nearby. This moment, however, highlights a moment of anti-Black racism, wherein Ruiz likens Ramón’s physical characteristics to Blackness as an insult. This passage adds another layer to O’Dell’s use of the color black throughout the novel; he often associates the color with evil or danger, reflecting the systemic roots of anti-Blackness.

“It is well to hold the tongue and not to talk needlessly when you are on the lagoon. Remember this when we go out to dive, for there is one who listens and is easily angered.” 

This passage marks the beginning of the rising action of the narrative. Luzon warns Ramón of the Manta Diablo but does not directly name it in this moment. This allows for a reading that places the ocean itself as the subject of Luzon’s warning; the sea itself is volatile, giving life and wealth to the town of La Paz just as easily as it takes it away.

“If there are so many […] then the Manta Diablo cannot be mad that you have taken only one of them.” 

Luzon attempts to reason with himself, claiming that the Manta Diablo will not be angry at Ramón’s removal of one pearl when it already has so many. This incredibly human logic has no place in belief, including Luzon’s inherited fear of the Manta Diablo’s wrath. Though he tries to apply a human, capitalist mindset to the myth of the Manta Diablo, Luzon knows that he is wrong for doing so.

“It was round and smooth and the color of smoke. It filled my cupped hand. Then the sun’s light struck deep into the thing and moved in silver swirls and I knew that it was not a rock that I held but a pearl, the great Pearl of Heaven.” 

This is the novel’s first description of the Pearl of Heaven. Though it seems to hold the light that strikes it, it also seems to suck the sun out of the sky. Darkness also falls right after the pearl is found, foreshadowing the dark events to come. This passage suggests that the pearl might not be a product of heaven after all.

“There was nothing I could say that would lessen the terror that had seized him. To him El Diablo was real and he was pursuing us to get back the pearl I had stolen.”

Though Ramón previously speaks about the Manta Diablo as a creature that he feared as a child, he is quick to distance himself from Luzon in this moment. Desperate to become a man just like his father, Ramón displaces his fear onto Luzon, insisting that the myth is only real to the indigenous man. This paranoid boat ride begins Ramón’s flight from the Manta Diablo, which literally and figuratively chases him over the course of the rest of the novel.

“Our house is on the plaza and has a big iron gate, which is locked at night from the inside. I rang the bell and when one of the Indians opened it, I said good morning and strolled to the kitchen and ate a large bowl of mush, as if nothing had happened, as if the most beautiful pearl ever found in the Vermilion Sea was not tucked away in my shirt.” 

Ramón’s play at normalcy as he walks into his home with the pearl tucked into his shirt juxtaposes sharply with the wealth of the Salazar home. With this emphasis on the Salazars’ indigenous servants and the home’s lavish gate, the reader is forced to wonder if perhaps Ruiz is right about Ramón’s family, particularly now that Ramón is bringing home a jewel that will only make them richer.

“‘There is nothing in all the seas of the world like this.’ He looked at the pearl. ‘You have made it. You have taken blister pearls and glued them together and polished them carefully on a wheel. You are a very clever young man, Ramón.’” 

Blas’s first instinct is to doubt the reality of the pearl before him and instead trust in his son’s genius. It is easier for him to believe in Ramón’s craftiness than it is for him to understand the true extent of nature’s capacity to make something so beautiful. Despite being a pearl diver, Blas is still continuously surprised at what nature has to offer. This reflects the complex relationship between the Salazars and the sea; they rely on it for their livelihood but don’t truly understand or appreciate it.

“A scream went up from the hallway. I think it was my mother who screamed, but it might have been my sister, for she too had been dreaming of things she wished to buy.”

After Blas gives the great black pearl to the Madonna and the church, Ramón’s mother or sister screams in response. Although the novel largely focuses on its male characters, as well as on the meaning of manhood and masculinity, this passage exemplifies the negative stereotypes of women as flighty, superficial, and greedy.

“That is not the reason […] You have the great pearl because you were angry with the dealers. You gave it away to spite them.” 

Although Blas claims that he donates the pearl to the church in exchange for the Madonna’s blessing and the fleet’s safety, it is clear to Ramón’s mother that Blas does so only to spite the other pearl dealers. In this moment, Blas exemplifies hubris as a fatal flaw—the Greek literary tradition’s surplus of pride that ultimately results in a character’s downfall.

“The pearl has worked a miracle […] For many years I have tried to coax these savages into my church but failed.” 

The antagonistic relationship between indigenous peoples and Catholicism is especially clear here. Though the indigenous people are only there to look at the pearl, Father Gallardo sees them as ripe for conversion. He has no respect for their beliefs, viewing them as lesser and in need of saving.

“For to those who had little and to those who had nothing, the pearl also belonged to each of them, to dream of the rest of their lives.” 

This passage offers a note of false hope as the poor and unhoused in La Paz are allowed to “own” a part of the black pearl, even if only in their dreams. This moment contrasts sharply with the wealth of the Salazars, who become the conduits between the people and the pearl, empowered by their ability to approve and deny access to it. Because of the pearl’s association with Heaven, this also places the Salazars into a mediating role like the one the church occupies, making them translators between the masses and God.

“His bragging no longer annoyed me, or not nearly so much. And now that I had dived in the Vermilion Sea and found the great black pearl, [h]e could not say that I had done nothing nor that I was a coward.” 

This passage reflects Ramón’s motivations in finding the black pearl. Though he initially wants to make his father proud, Ramón soon begins to compete in a challenge of manliness with the Sevillano. Ramón only believes the competition is over because he has temporarily one-upped Ruiz and therefore momentarily attained a stereotypical standard of masculinity.

“It is not my pearl.”

This passage epitomizes Ramón’s faith in the Madonna and the church. Though Ramón is the one to pull the pearl from the ocean, he never claims ownership over it. In fact, the pearl belongs to almost everyone except Ramón: the Manta Diablo, Blas, La Paz, and the Madonna. Nevertheless, it’s Ramón who decides the pearl’s ultimate fate, his disinterest in owning or selling it making him worthy of doing so.

“You are still a boy and there is much that you do not know. Therefore I must tell you that the pearl does not belong to the Madonna nor to the church nor to the people who were singing. It belongs to the Manta Diablo and someday he will take it back. Of this I solemnly warn you.” 

The theme of ownership, especially over the pearl and everything that it symbolizes, reoccurs throughout the novel. In this passage, Soto Luzon warns Ramón that the pearl cannot belong to anything other than the Manta Diablo; it cannot belong to the man-made world, including to a man-made faith and religion. Luzon accomplishes his role here as the harbinger of death.

“My husband gave the great pearl to the Madonna. Surely, father, she will bring him home.” 

Ramón’s mother begs Father Gallardo to comfort her in the wake of Blas and the fleet’s disappearance. As they wait on the beach after the storm, she tries to negotiate the untamable world at large through her faith—an attempt to maintain some control over events that are entirely beyond her reach. This moment echoes the earlier one in which Luzon attempts to similarly rationalize the ins and outs of the Manta Diablo’s rage.

“How strange, everyone said, that in less than a month the two greatest happenings in all the history of La Paz had taken place. First it was the finding of the great pearl. Then it was the coming of the great storm that wrecked the fleet and drowned so many. Nobody could put what he thought into words, but there were those who felt that the two happenings were joined together in some mysterious way.”

The story’s oral tradition intertwines with the rumor mill of La Paz. As the town gossips about the possible connection between the pearl and the storm, the novel not only contends with belief, but also demonstrates how myths and legends come to be formed or created. This suggests that all myths stem first from a single kernel of truth.

“At that moment a ray of light fell through a window full upon the Madonna. It shone upon the pearl She held in Her hand and set it aglow, and as I gazed at the pearl I began to wonder for the first time why such a magnificent gift had not protected my father against the storm.” 

This passage begins the struggle of Ramón’s faith, who is torn between his belief in the Madonna and his fear of the Manta Diablo. Ramón begins wondering about the validity of Luzon’s belief in the Manta Diablo, causing him to question not only the Madonna’s power but also her existence.

“When the moon came up I started for the lagoon where the Manta Diablo lived, or where the old man said he lived, and now I half-believed to be the truth”

Throughout the course of the night, Ramón begins to truly believe in the Manta Diablo and the cursed lagoon. This echoes Ramón’s place in the hierarchy of oral tradition; he has once again inherited a story passed down from an older generation. This dive into another set of beliefs changes the set of rules that Ramón must live by to survive.

“During the long night I had thought little of the Manta Diablo and when I did it was without fear. A creature who could change his form and become a living person and go into town and even into the church, as the old man said, whose friends among the sharks and fish told him everything they saw or heard on the sea, surely this creature would know that I had the great pearl and was returning it to his cave.” 

This passage displays yet another moment wherein humans attempt to negotiate with the great unknown to maintain the illusion of control. Here, Ramón attempts to adopt the Manta Diablo’s perspective, but he does so in a way that assimilates the creature into human understandings of good and evil. Later in the novel, Ramón begins to believe that the Manta Diablo is nothing more than a giant manta ray, as deadly as any other sea creature, and something that cannot be controlled or negotiated with.

“You toss it to the devil and the devil picks it up.” 

Ruiz’s lack of belief in the Manta Diablo and the Madonna casts Ruiz himself as the central character of his own narrative, just as his bragging and lies make him the hero of countless stories. Here, Ramón sees that Ruiz is not only not a hero but in fact a villain, crueler than both the sea and the Manta Diablo. Nevertheless, Ramón misunderstands the trials that he has faced throughout the course of the novel; other people and the consequences of their actions have had a bigger impact on his life than the devil has.

“I think it was the amber eye he had fixed upon me as he passed, upon me and not upon the Sevillano. Yet it might have been the stories that had frightened me as a child, before I had learned to laugh at them, that now came flooding back, more real than they ever were. I do not know. I do know that suddenly I was certain that the giant swimming there was the Manta Diablo himself.” 

This passage examines the moment wherein man is confronted with the insurmountable force of nature. The Manta Diablo’s name is a misnomer; it is not the devil, but an autonomous creature that man has no power over. When Ramón comes face to face with the creature from the deep, he is left awestruck, unable to understand the vastness of the ocean and the vulnerability of humans in the face of it. Ramón thus returns to the childhood stories he was told to attempt to make sense of these feelings of fear and vulnerability.