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 7-9Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 7 Summary
Ramón and Luzon begin their journey back to La Paz immediately. Luzon is paranoid the entire time, looking over his shoulder back at the lagoon as they paddle. When he spots a manta, he is convinced that it is El Diablo hunting them down to retrieve its pearl. A storm rages above them and Ramón almost falls out of the canoe; his first thought is to ensure that the pearl is safe. On the shore, Luzon insists that Ramón throw the pearl back into the sea and says he will do the same to the three small pearls they’d left back at the lagoon. He also refuses to go to La Paz with Ramón, saying that the pearl is not his. Ramón tries to convince Luzon of the pearl’s value, but the older man does not care; he warns Ramón that Manta Diablo will eventually get its pearl back, even at the cost of Ramón’s life.
Ramón makes his way back to La Paz, where he weighs the pearl. It is 62.3 carats. Ramón returns home and finds that news of the pearl has spread; when he goes to the office, there is a crowd of people gathered to see if the rumors are true. Ramón refuses to answer any questions, hiding in the office until his father returns. At first, his father believes the pearl to be a fake Ramón has glued together and polished. When Ramón finally convinces him that the pearl is real, Blas walks out into the crowd and holds it up for all of them to see.
Chapter 8 Summary
The town celebrates the finding of the pearl by having a large party. Blas and Ramón go to their home workshop to take a closer look at the pearl; they find a flaw that could either reside in the first layer or go deep into the gem. If the flaw is deep, Ramón would be left with an average pearl. They must shave off the layers with the flaw to discover how deep it goes. The alteration is a delicate process; Blas scrapes off the top layers of the gem with a curved knife while Ramón prays. Blas eventually reveals that the flaw is only superficial; Ramón has found the “Paragon of Pearls” (50), and fixing its natural flaw has given it greater monetary value.
Chapter 9 Summary
A week later, Blas tries to sell the black pearl for 20 thousand pesos but meets significant resistance from the four other pearl dealers. Ramón’s mother and sister have a long list of things they wish to buy with the profits of the sale, but after a long afternoon of arguing, the four pearl dealers are willing to part with only 15 thousand pesos. They mock Blas for threatening to go to Mexico City to sell it, because he had returned from his last trip there unsuccessful. Furious, Blas calls for Father Gallardo and gives him the black pearl as a gift for the Madonna. Though Blas claims he did this purely to ingratiate the Salazar family with Heaven, his wife believes that he did so only to spite the other pearl dealers.
Chapters 7-9 Analysis
The black pearl becomes a source of pride for both Ramón and Blas and serves as a representation of the Salazar family’s capitalistic relationship with nature. The Salazars are one of the wealthiest families in town; Ramón describes their home as having a surrounding gate and indigenous servants who tend to both the compound and the family’s wishes. Descriptions of unhoused residents of the town sleeping in doorways and indigenous people living in shacks contrast sharply to the wealth that Ramón describes with ease. This wealth and power stem from the Salazars’ capacity to dive and collect pearls; as such, they depend on nature’s creations to retain their status in La Paz.
However, while their lives depend on the volatile nature of the weather and the ocean’s currents, the Salazars believe themselves capable of not only altering nature, but bettering it. At first glance, Blas believes the great pearl to be a fake—an amalgamation of poorer pearls that Ramón has glued together and sanded. Blas praises Ramón for this. In this moment, Blas’s pride in his son’s supposed ingenuity cheapens his own understanding of and respect for the sea; he believes Ramón’s craftiness is more than able to replicate a gem of the ocean.
Even when Blas discovers that the pearl is real, both he and his son move quickly past simple admiration of it. They go into the workshop and immediately begin to measure and inspect it, not out of artistic admiration or love of gems, but to assess its monetary value—its economic worth. The idea of the pearl as a jewel of the sea—as something beautiful to be adored—is lost in the Salazars’ capitalistic relationship with the ocean. Ramón’s mother and sister see in the pearl only the things that they can buy from its profits. Ramón sees the pearl as proof of his manhood, triumph over the Sevillano, and the object that has earned his father’s pride. For Blas, the pearl becomes something more than sheer economic power; it becomes a status symbol both on Earth and in Heaven. In a barter more akin to capitalistic trade than faithful charity, Blas gives the pearl to the church to spite the other pearl tradesmen. With this, Blas believes himself to have become untouchable; in his mind, he has earned the respect not only of the townsfolk but also of God. He even positions himself as an arbiter between the two, bidding others to see the holy object only when he allows. This ownership of the pearl turns Blas’s pride into hubris—a fatal flaw that will lead to his undoing.
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