Steinbeck's prose is noted for its rhythmic quality, often using the word "and" to connect clauses, creating a biblical momentum. "And Kino heard the music... and the music was savage." This polysyndeton drives the narrative forward relentlessly. Linguistics students often download the pearl pdf to analyze this specific syntactic choice. It gives the story the feeling of an oral history being recounted by an elder, adding to the mythic weight of the tale.
