Free Essays on The Pearl

I. Type of Story In my opinion The Pearl is a very interesting novel in the way that the book is written and the problems that are so realistically portrayed. The author chooses a poor Indian Village as the setting for his story, probably to show that it really doesn’t matter where one lives, since greed exists all over the world. Kino, the main character, finds a huge pearl that is supposedly worth a lot of money. His attitude toward his friends and family doesn’t change but the attitude of everyone else does in that they suddenly becomes his friend and wants something from him. Their feeling is that they deserve their share, and they will play every trick in the book to get what they want. The sad thing is that even the doctor, who is supposed to be a caregiver, first rejects Kino but agrees to see him once he hears of the pearl. I feel that the story is well written in that if the reader looks over the fact that the story takes place in a distant land, we can find many similari ties between the theme in the story and our everyday lives. II. Characterizations The person who takes the role of the protagonist in The Pearl is Kino. He is the caretaker of the family and he would do anything to safeguard his family. For instance, when he finds the pearl the only thing that he thinks of is what he could procure for his family and how the money could effect their lives. He imagined that he could afford to let his son go to school and get an education and so he could make a better living for himself and not always be concerned about making ends meet or how to make money for a living. He imagined his wife Juana decked out in new clothes and wearing jewelry, and he imagined getting married but this time in a real church with all their family, as well a real priest. He thought that now that he had found this pearl he could provide anything that his family wanted and that he wo... Free Essays on The Pearl Free Essays on The Pearl Plot Overview Kino, Juana, and their infant son, Coyotito, live in a modest brush house by the sea. One morning, calamity strikes when a scorpion stings Coyotito. Hoping to protect their son, Kino and Juana rush him to the doctor in town. When they arrive at the doctor’s gate, they are turned away because they are poor natives who cannot pay enough. Later that same morning, Kino and Juana take their family canoe, an heirloom, out to the estuary to go diving for pearls. Juana makes a poultice for Coyotito’s wound, while Kino searches the sea bottom. Juana’s prayers for a large pearl are answered when Kino surfaces with the largest pearl either of them has ever seen. Kino lets out a triumphant yell at his good fortune, prompting the surrounding boats to circle in and examine the treasure. In the afternoon, the whole neighborhood gathers at Kino’s brush house to celebrate his find. Kino names a list of things that he will secure for his family with his newfound wealth, including a church wedding and an education for his son. The neighbors marvel at Kino’s boldness and wonder if he is foolish or wise to harbor such ambitions. Toward evening, the local priest visits Kino to bless him in his good fortune and to remind him of his place within the church. Shortly thereafter, the doctor arrives, explaining that he was out in the morning but has come now to cure Coyotito. He administers a powdered capsule and promises to return in an hour. In the intervening period, Coyotito grows violently ill, and Kino decides to bury the pearl under the floor in a corner of the brush house. The doctor returns and feeds Coyotito a potion to quiet his spasms. When the doctor inquires about payment, Kino explains that soon he will sell his large pearl and inadvertently glances toward the corner where he has hidden the pearl. This mention of the pearl greatly intrigues the doctor, and Kino is left with an uneasy feeling. Before going to... Free Essays on The Pearl Ever since Midas' lust for gold, it appears to be that man has acquired a greed and appetite for wealth. Juana, the Priest, and the doctor have all undergone a change due to money. They are all affected by their hunger for wealth and inturn are the base for their own destruction, and the destruction of society. Steinbeck's "The Pearl" is a study of man's self destruction through greed. Juana, the faithful wife of Kino, a paltry peasant man, had lived a spiritual life for what had seemed like as long as she could remember. When her son Coyito fell ill from the bite of a scorpion, she eagerly turned towards the spiritual aspects of life. Beginning to pray for her son's endangered life. The doctor who had resided in the upper-class section of the town, refused to assistant the child, turning them away when they arrived at the door. Lastly they turned to the sea to seek their fortune. When Juana set sight on the "Pearl of The World." she felt as though all her prayers had been answered, if she could have foreseen the future what she would have seen would have been a mirror image of her reality. Juana's husband was caught in a twisted realm of mirrors, and they were all shattering one by one. In the night he heard a "sound so soft that it might have been simply a thought..." and quickly attacked the trespasser. This is where the problems for Juana and her family began. The fear that had mounted in Kino's body had taken control over his actions. Soon even Juana who had always had faith in her husband, had doubted him greatly. "It will destroy us all" she yelled as her attempt to rid the family of the pearl had failed. Kino had not listened however, and soon Juana began to lose her spiritual side and for a long time she had forgotten her prayers that had at once meant so much to her. She had tried to help Kino before to much trouble had aroused, only to discover that she was not competent enough to help. A hypocra... Free Essays on The Pearl I. Type of Story In my opinion The Pearl is a very interesting novel in the way that the book is written and the problems that are so realistically portrayed. The author chooses a poor Indian Village as the setting for his story, probably to show that it really doesn’t matter where one lives, since greed exists all over the world. Kino, the main character, finds a huge pearl that is supposedly worth a lot of money. His attitude toward his friends and family doesn’t change but the attitude of everyone else does in that they suddenly becomes his friend and wants something from him. Their feeling is that they deserve their share, and they will play every trick in the book to get what they want. The sad thing is that even the doctor, who is supposed to be a caregiver, first rejects Kino but agrees to see him once he hears of the pearl. I feel that the story is well written in that if the reader looks over the fact that the story takes place in a distant land, we can find many similari ties between the theme in the story and our everyday lives. II. Characterizations The person who takes the role of the protagonist in The Pearl is Kino. He is the caretaker of the family and he would do anything to safeguard his family. For instance, when he finds the pearl the only thing that he thinks of is what he could procure for his family and how the money could effect their lives. He imagined that he could afford to let his son go to school and get an education and so he could make a better living for himself and not always be concerned about making ends meet or how to make money for a living. He imagined his wife Juana decked out in new clothes and wearing jewelry, and he imagined getting married but this time in a real church with all their family, as well a real priest. He thought that now that he had found this pearl he could provide anything that his family wanted and that he wo...

Overview of Volatility Clustering

Overview of Volatility Clustering Volatility clustering is the tendency of  large changes in prices of financial assets to cluster together, which results in the persistence of these magnitudes of price changes. Another way to describe the phenomenon of volatility clustering is to quote famous scientist-mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot, and define it as the observation that large changes tend to be followed by large changes...and small changes tend to be followed by small changes when it comes to markets. This phenomenon is observed when there are extended periods of high market volatility or the relative rate at which the price of a financial asset change,  followed by a period of calm or low volatility. The Behavior of Market Volatility Time series of financial asset returns often demonstrates volatility clustering.  In a time series of stock prices, for instance, it is observed that the variance of returns or log-prices is high for extended periods and then low for extended periods. As such, the variance of daily returns can be high one month (high volatility) and show low variance (low volatility) the next. This occurs to such a degree that it makes an iid model (independent and identically  distributed model) of log-prices or asset returns unconvincing. It is this very property of time series of prices that is called volatility clustering. What this means in practice and in the world of investing is that as markets respond to new information with large price movements (volatility), these high-volatility environments tend to endure for a while after that first shock. In other words, when a market suffers a volatile shock,  more volatility should be expected. This phenomenon has been referred to as the persistence of volatility shocks, which gives rise to the concept of volatility clustering.   Modeling Volatility Clustering The phenomenon of volatility clustering has been of great interest to researchers of many backgrounds and has influenced the development of stochastic models in finance. But volatility clustering is  usually approached by modeling the price process with an ARCH-type model.  Today, there are  several methods for quantifying and modeling this phenomenon, but the two most widely-used models are the autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (ARCH) and the  generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (GARCH) models. While ARCH-type models and stochastic volatility models are used by researchers to offer some statistical systems that imitate volatility clustering, they still do not give any economic explanation for it.