Cover Essay

Gathering the Pearls in Life

When I look at the cover of the Book, “Gathering of Pearls”, there are many thoughts come to my mind. On the cover, there are beautiful flowers all around the image. This could be saying to us that there are beautiful things all around Sookan, but she has to look for them. The image on the cover is very simple. It is an image of a girl on the floor, wearing a black dress, white blouse and black shoes. She is picking up pearls from the floor. I know from reading the book that Sookan’s pearl necklace, that Sister Reed gave to her, has broken and that she is picking up the pearls that are all over the floor. The image reminds me of the story in the book and how Sookan was able to make good things from the bad things that happened in her life. The cover image and title symbolize how Sookan got many beautiful things from the bad things that happened in her life.

In the cover image, Sookan is gathering pearls. Each pearl represents something beautiful that has come from something that was hard or bad in her life. When Sookan went to college, she did not have much money. She had to get a job. The job she got was babysitting for Professor Bennett’s family. Because she went to work for her teacher, she met his children. She loved the children, and the children loved her. Sookan fell in love with Professor Bennett’s children, and they fell in love with her. If Sookan had enough money so that she would not need to work, she would have not had the love of the children. Because she did not have much money, she got the love of the two children. This was a good thing that happened to her because of something bad. Another good thing that happened because of something bad was that Sookan was able to help Marci and Ellen get along better with their parents because Sookan’s father was dead and her own sister was always trying to tell Sookan how she should live her life. Sookan missed her father very much and felt bad that him being dead made things harder for the family. Things were really hard for Sookan’s mother, because Sookan’s father was dead. Sookan would have loved to have her father alive. Sookan knew that her sister loved her, even when Sookan did not agree with what her sister was telling her, or when her sister was being mean to her. The things that happened in Sookan’s life made her understand things that Marci and Ellen did not understand and made it easier for her to explain to her friends why they should not be angry with their parents.

There are many pearls in the picture. Sookan is in the floor gathering the pearls to make sure that she gets all of them. She is being careful picking up the pearls because she does not want to miss any of the good things that are coming to her. Some of the pearls are in front of her, and some of them are behind her. Also, in Sookan’s life, there are good things in her future and good things in the past. In the picture, there are more pearls in front of her. This could mean that there more good things that will happen to her in the future than happened before in the past.

The image and the title are about it is important to gather the beautiful things that come from the bad things that happen in life. Just like when a grain of sand gets inside an oyster. The grain of sand is irritating to the oyster at first, but the oyster makes a beautiful pearl around the irritating thing. Maybe, that is why Sookan does not get too upset when bad things happen, because she knows that she will be able to make something good from them.