The Pearl Commentary

I have recently read The Pearl by John Steinbeck and I have a lot of thoughts surrounding it.  Basically, the premise of the novel is that a man finds a large pearl and becomes very greedy and protective of it.  I feel like the concept is flawed.  The reason that he needed to find the pearl was because his son became sick and they could not afford a doctor, but he goes diving for a pearl once and finds the greatest one anyone has ever seen?  Additionally, the pearl was of great value making thieves threaten his life and his families lives.  And when he goes to sell the pearl, the buyer offers him a lower price that he thinks is reasonable.  Even though it wasn't as much, the implications and violence he faced because of the pearl should have been enough for him to sell it.  If he really cared about his family, why wouldn't he take the sum of money instead of putting them in even more danger?  This is even further proven by when he says to his wife, "No one shall take our good fortune from us" (Steinbeck 61), making me think that he didn't care about helping his family at all, only with getting the money he desired from the pearl.  He was even willing to kill or destroy anything in his path to make sure he had the pearl.    The Pearl was a novel that really displayed how wealth and power can corrupt anyone's mind and will force them to do anything.