Theme of Racial Discrimination in The Pearl

Abstract

Race and racial inequality have powerfully shaped American history from its beginning. Most grieving issues of the day such as discrimination, prejudice, violence have found their way into the various forms of literature i.e. poetry, drama and fiction. Though Americans like to think and driven by the quest of freedom, initially religious and later economic and political liberty, but it must be noted that from the beginning, American society was equally founded on worst forms of domination, oppression and inequality that involved the complete denial for slaves. The purpose of this research paper is, understanding the ways in which racial oppression occurs and imposes harms on people in the racially oppressed society with special reference to The Pearl written by John Steinbeck. Marxist approach has been used besides the method of textual analysis to bring out the theme of racial discrimination in the novel.