Bildungsroman In The Bean Trees

In Barbara Kingsolver’s novel The Bean Trees, Taylor Greer tries to escape turning out like everyone else in Pittman County; she has dreams of becoming something besides a teenage bride or a high school drop out. The Bean Trees, a perfect representation of an authentic Bildungsroman portrays someone who undergoes a life altering change, which will in turn send them on their way to becoming a full fledged adult. Karl Morgenstern coined the word bildungsroman, which means novel of formation in German. Loss can be used as one way to open protagonist’s eyes to the world beyond their hometown. In a Bildungsroman, the general goal can be maturity, and the protagonist achieves adulthood slowly and painfully. The protagonist eventually accepts the
Life physically and mentally tests Taylor when her daughter is thought to have been molested a second time by an unknown assailant when Taylor was not around. Taylor learns of Turtle’s injuries on page 280 in which “The medical examiner said that there was no evidence Turtle had been molested. She was shaken up, and there were finger-shaped bruises on her right shoulder, and that was all”, which slowly sent Taylor in a downward because she finally understood what it meant to be a parent and it suddenly dawned upon her that maybe she could not protect Turtle the way her aunt had asked her to. However, the incident in the park just reaffirmed her strength and vigor, which showed her friends and herself that she was slowly starting to evolve and that she could overcome any difficult task if she set her mind to it. The final Bildungsroman stage occurs on page 374 when Taylor says, “Here’s the big news, Turtle’s my real daughter, I adopted her.” This major change in the story symbolizes her newfound maturity and acceptance of her roles as a mother. She understands that she could have never dreamed of becoming a mother in her other lifetime because she simply was not ready to bring joy to other people’s lives before she met Turtle and the rest of her friends. She was taught how to accept the