Theme Of Legality And Decision-Making In Barbara Kingsolver's The Bean Trees

The Bean Trees, by Barbara Kingsolver, tells the story of how life is all about the journey, and not always the destination. The book revolves around one main character, Taylor Greer. Her life has not always been easy, and one day she decides to start over and leave. The reader follows her journey, and eventually meets other characters like Lou Ann Ruiz and Esperanza. These three women all want a clean slate to start a new life. When their journeys come together, a community of women forms that is full of support and love. Kingsolver tells the story of three women, and how their lives drastically change. Each journey is represented by their own symbol; something that explains these journeys with just one object. In The Bean Trees, three main

Kingsolver uses irony that shows how different people react to having to take care of a child. Missy had left town so she would not have a baby, but the woman gives her the child anyways. The baby's mother is dead and the woman is the aunt of the the child, but when she has to face the role of being a parent, she gives away the child.

tissory could be about how Taylor tries extremely hard to not have a child, but she gets one anyways. 4. “There were two things about Mama. One is she always expect the best out of me. And the other is that then no matter what I did, whatever I came home with, she acted like it was the moon I had just hung up in the sky and plugged in all the stars.

Kingsolver states, “I’m just a plain hillbilly from East Jesus Nowhere with this adopted child that that everybody keeps on telling me is dumb as a box of rocks” (Kingsolver, 45). Kingsolver includes a simile with the child being compared to a box of rocks and this represents how Taylor and Lou Ann were able to understand each other due to the Southern dialect they both shared. Another instance where Kingsolver uses this Southern dialect is when Lou Ann commands her mother and grandmother to not sit on the bench because “it’ll be as a poker in this sun” (36). A simile is spoken with the bench being compared to a poker in the sun; this is another daily occurrence in which the characters use this Southern dialect. Also, as Estevan and Taylor have a conversation, Estevan says her speech is poetic while Taylor refers to it as “the biggest bunch of hogwash” (69). Symbolism is also introduced in her work; Kingsolver introduces the wisteria vines that can grow in non-fertile soil due to rhizobia which symbolizes the ability for Turtle to thrive with Taylor acting as the rhizobia for due to her help in raising her. This unique dialect that Kingsolver puts on display in her book through figurative language to display the simple and ordinary life each of her characters possessed by relating it back to her own native Kentucky

Nowhere. Nowhere is where you would be without the help of others. Nowhere is where you would be without the learning experiences that others have enlightened you of. Somewhere is where you are now because of the others around you. This is the belief of many, especially Barbara Kingsolver the author of The Bean Trees. The main characters of this story are Taylor, Turtle, Lou Ann, Mattie, Esperanza, and Estevan. These characters all have a very special part in making the story come to life. The Bean Trees is about an adventure seeking girl named Missy. In the beginning of the book Missy buys an old car and goes just about as far as it will take her, changing her name to Taylor along the way. Everything seems to be going well when suddenly her life comes to a screeching halt when she gets handed a child, Turtle, who is in desperate need of a home. The rest of the book focuses on their journey through life as Taylor raises Turtle in a struggle to find Turtle’s true identity. In this book Kingsolver uses symbolism and foreshadowing to convey her belief that we must rely on

Taylor receives no explanation from the woman who leaves Turtle with her, yet Taylor still takes on huge responsibility of caring for the child. Then, Taylor starts to notice a lot of things that makes her wandering what happened with the little girl. Taylor starts noticing Turtle’s smile while she was bathing her, and she also discovers that Turtle has been sexually molested and abused. By discovering these details of Turtle’s life, Tylor want to know more about Turtle’s life. She start working, but Tylor keeps thinking about Turtle. For example, in page (69) Tylor starts the work at Burger Derby, but after 6 days she quiet. She kept thinking about Tylor and who will take care of her while she is in work. That shows how Tylor start acting like mother when she left her job and tried to find a good place for her and

The book The Bean Trees, by Barbara Kingsolver, is a coming of age story about a young girl, Taylor, that is thrust into motherhood when a baby is left in her car. Taylor however, is not the only example of a mother in the story. There is Lou Ann and Esperanza, both literal mothers, but only one of them has their child to take care of. There is Mattie, one of the first people that Taylor meet in Tucson, and who becomes almost a surrogate-mother for both her, and also the refugees that she shelters. In all of the both literal and figurative examples of motherhood in the story, none of them really fit into the idea of a traditional family setting. Kingsolver is expressing to the reader that being a successful mother does not rely on whether the family is “normal”, but rather being able to do the best for your children.

In the novel, The Bean Trees, Barbara Kingsolver, uses symbolism to illustrate how friendships can help through the process of motherhood. We watch the adventure of Tayler we can see how much of a woman she’s become such as taking care of Turtle. Through the care of Turtle Tayler needed help with Turtle so befriended Lou Ann, Estevan, and Esperanza. What Tayler don't know that all of this was the journey to motherhood even though Turtle wasn't her biological daughter she still thinks Turtle as her own.

Turtle and Taylor end up living in Tucson, Arizona. Taylor finds a job and a place to stay. While she is in Tucson she starts to recognize that there are a lot of people in the world that have gone through much worse situations than she has. She tells Estevan, "I keep finding out that life can be hard in ways I never knew about" (141). She is growing out of her naiveness and learning more about the realities of life. This in turn is making her a more understanding and

“Scotty Richey … killed himself on his sixteenth birthday … nobody could understand about Scotty … But the way I see it is, he just didn’t have anybody. … It was like we were all the animals on Noah’s ark that came in pairs, except of his kind there was only one” (Kingsolver 132-4). In Barbara Kingsolver’s novel The Bean Trees, Taylor mentions to Estevan her classmate Scotty Richey’s suicide. She explains that although her school had a very distinct social hierarchy, people within a class had each other for company. Scotty, however, had nobody. As a result of the extreme isolation he faced, he committed suicide. Today, bullying is a developing issue in the world and exclusion, which Scotty faced, is just one of many forms of bullying. What Scotty experienced in the novel occurs in schools around the world, and the consequences are unimaginable and horrific. In light of the increasingly advanced technology developed in recent years, cyberbullying has become a more common form of bullying among students. Cyberbullying, or bullying that occurs through the internet or media, happens due to the courage that bullies acquire by not having to physically face their victims. The harassment the victims experience lead to mental as well as physical health issues, which often times leads to suicide. In order to prevent such grave repercussions, education systems and parents must teach kids how to behave properly on the

Epiphanies are central to the plots of many novels. In the novel The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingslover, the main character, Taylor Greer, has an epiphany that changes the course of her life. After Turtle is traumatized in the park, Taylor withdraws from her and the rest of the world, believing that no nothing she does truly matters. As Turtle improves, Taylor realizes that her positive actions do make the world a better place. When Turtle begins to talk again, Taylor has an epiphany and realizes that every small compassionate action is important and that even she can help make the world a better place. As a result of her epiphany, Taylor is more willing to help others. The positive results of Taylor’s epiphany are first shown when she decides to fight for custody of

(Quote Turtles first word). Taylor comes to the conclusion that like a flower being planted in a dirty place it can turn out beautiful. After her finding out about Turtle condition of Failure to Thrive she then will take Estevan and Esperanza with her to a Cherokee nation to find out more about both Turtles ancestry along with Taylor’s grandfathers. While being their Taylor understands how big a privilege she has being in the majority while she is in Arizona, because while being in the Cherokee nation she is a minority. Throughout the whole book Taylor constantly makes improvements on the way she looks at life and how although she didn’t want to have Turtle in the first place, having her and taking her to Arizona was the best decision she had

Taylor left willingly and by her own choice and could not wait to leave her home. Turtle, Estevan, and Esperanza on the other hand did not want to leave their homelands. Taylor left her home willingly, which is different than the other three characters. Taylor saves up her money from her job at the hospital and uses it to purchase a car and “in this car [she] intended to drive out of Pittman County one day and never look back, except maybe for Mama,” (14). Taylor does everything in her power to make sure that she will eventually get out of Pittman County one day. Even Taylor’s mom knew that “the day [Taylor] brought it home, she knew [Taylor] was going to get away,” from the place she has called home for so many years (14). Taylor is sick of living in her hometown and she feels trapped. She is itching to get away and leave and start a new life unlike Turtle, Estevan, and Esperanza. No one cares about Turtle or where she ends up (until Taylor) and she has no choice when it came to leaving her home on the Cherokee Nation. Turtle is just given away without a thought put into it and Taylor has to explain to Turtle’s aunt that“even if you wanted to, you can’t just give somebody a kid,” but that does not seem to stop her (24). Turtle’s aunt just gives Turtle away without any explanation and tells Taylor to “take this baby,”(23). Turtle is so little she has no clue what is going on. She does not know that this is the last time that she will probably ever see her homeland. Estevan and his wife Esperanza had to leave their homeland because if they did not they would of been killed because of the teacher’s union that they belonged to. The couple are “more useful alive than dead,” because they are so involved within the Union (184). They knew so much that it would be bad if they were killed and in order to not be killed they had to flee the place they loved. Estevan and

Life is constantly changing, like clouds in the sky; always shifting and turning. People never really know which way life will turn next, bringing them fortune or failure. When you look at how things change it is best to compare it to something that you can relate it to. The changeable nature of life can be related to the novel 'The Bean Trees.' This is a book written almost entirely on dealing with changes in the characters lives.

The characters in the short stories are not able to have everything they want since they must choose between two things of significant importance to them. To illustrate, in The Bean Trees, Taylor’s happiness comes from escaping Kentucky