Pearl is the mother of Cody, Ezra, and Jenny. After her husband, Beck, abandons the family, she resigns herself to raising three children alone. The imprint she leaves on the personalities of her children ensures that she is the most important figure in the novel. This imprint can be both positive and negative, a testament to Pearl’s complicated emotional state throughout the children’s early lives. Pearl’s poor health provides the structure of the novel. Pearl is introduced in a moment of weakness, her ill health providing an important context to the occasionally abusive behavior she exhibits later in the text. Over the course of the novel, the audience discovers the extent to which her life is something of a minor tragedy. After Beck leaves, Pearl devotes herself entirely to her children. She has no friends, no hobbies (until she becomes a baseball fan in later life), and feels in no way inclined to integrate into the community. These suggestions of tragedy and abuse are affected by the audience being introduced to Pearl at her weakest; the audience can feel greater sympathy toward her because they have witnessed firsthand how weak and vulnerable Pearl will become.