imilarities and Differences between The Bean Tree and Pigs in Heaven
Many people who have read any of Barbara Kingsolver’s works might have noticed her unique writing style and originality in her books. The Bean Tree, and Pigs in Heaven are two of her books that have differences and similarities. While examining the two, you find differences in the theme and who Kingsolver draws your sympathy to. Also, in the books woman’s strength is shown in both stories. This one thing that connects the stories the most.
To start, Kingsolver uses your sympathy to draw you into the books. In The Bean Tree, Kingsolver makes you feel sorry for American’s in poverty. Butler states, “The novel is about the struggles of American life for the vast number of people for whom the rags-to-riches dream is never realized. This is the real America, the America of unskilled labor, low levels of education, and limited access to the perks of American society (Butler 1927). This story makes you feel sympathy towards American life, however in Pigs in Heaven you feel more sympathetic towards Taylor and Turtle. “I understand attachments between mothers and their children. But if you are right, if I have no choice here but to be a
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bird of prey, tearing flesh to keep my own alive, it’s because I understand attachments. That’s the kind of hawk I am- I’ve lost my other wing.”(Pigs in Heaven pg.155) This quote from the story shows the desperation Taylor has in the Turtle case. This draws your sympathy to them. You sympathy for certain things change in each story with changing plot and conflicts. Next, the theme of the two stories differ even though one is a continuation of the other. In The Bean Trees the main theme is the importance of family and having a big support system. Novy stated “Taylor's sense of community leads her to a redefinition of family.”(Novy par.9) This criticism shows how her community turned people to family. In Pigs in Heaven, the theme is more about injustice. In, Pigs in Heaven the main part of the story is about if Turtle should be taken away from her mother. While resolving this issue the main theme becomes apparent. “Taylor's life on the run with Turtle heartbreakingly demonstrates how impossible it is to be a good mother when you're totally cut off from any support system.” (Smith Par. 7) As Smith explain the injustice of taking a kid from their mother they have always been with is making Taylors parenting a challenge. The theme of this story is more of the opposite of the theme in The Bean Tree. Finally, Kingsolver’s stories are similar in many ways as well.
One reoccurring lesson in both stories is about woman’s strength. In The Bean Tree, Taylor said, “I told her I didn't know, because I didn't have a daddy. That I was lucky that way. She said yeah.” (The Bean Tree pg. 40) This Quote from the story tells us that Taylor was raised with only a caring mother because her father was abusive. This is a case of women’s strength in that her mother cared for her alone just as Taylor is doing for Turtle now. In Pigs in Heaven, there are also many cases where a woman is independent. One case is when Taylor says she doesn’t need Jax. Taylor fights with everything she has to keep Turtle. One thing you can infer from both stories is how brave and independent the women
are. In conclusion, reading both books with small differences made the books far more interesting and enjoyable to read. While reading The Bean Tree and Pigs in Heaven, many similarities and differences in Kingsolver’s writing styles show through. The way she changes who you feel sympathy towards, and the themes of the story, while still keeping the main point of women’s strength apparent in the two makes these books great.
Teitz explains that the living spaces for the pigs are so small that they will trample each other to death, and piglets are unintentionally smashed by their mothers. Teitz asserts that, not only are the living spaces small, but they...
The Bean Trees has the structure of a quest. The protagonist or quester is Taylor Greer. Her place to go or destination of the quest is more of an idea rather than an actual place. It is the idea of a place free of oppression due to her gender and cultural background. She wants a place to start a new life. Taylor’s escape
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 novel challenges the contradicting sides of the expectation and reality of family and how each one contains a symbiotic relationship. The ideal relationship within families differ throughout The Bean Trees. Kingsolver focuses on the relationship between different characters and how they rely on each other to fill the missing gaps in their lives. When Taylor and Lou Ann meet, they form a symbiotic relationship and fill the missing gaps in each others lives. Once the two women move in with each other, Lou Ann fills Taylor’s missing gap of motherly experience and opens her eyes to a life full of responsibilities.
In the novel, The Bean Trees, by Barbara Kingsolver, we watch as Taylor grows a great deal. This young woman takes on a huge commitment of caring for a child that doesn't even belong to her. The friends that she acquired along the way help teach her about love and responsibility, and those friends become family to her and Turtle. Having no experience in motherhood, she muddles through the best she can, as all mothers do.
In this story “The Bean Trees” by Barbara Kingslover we meet Taylor Greer, an average teenager from Pittman, Kentucky. Even though Taylor has never been through anything truly horrific in her life how can she truly understand how unpleasant the world can be? Taylor’s personal growth in the “The Bean Trees” is a part of an uncertain journey because Taylor is thrown into motherhood and forced to see the bad experiences people go through in life.
In Barbara Kingsolver’s novel The Poisonwood Bible, characters Adah and Rachel Price differ in their outlooks on life. Adah contrasts Rachel with her inside reality, her dark fiction, as well as her dependence on others due to her slant. Rachel, on the other hand, loves the outside reality, compares her life to that of a light fairy tale, and is independent. Kingsolver’s choice of two vastly different characters aids in the demonstration of the complexity each character has. In order to portray each character’s aspects, Kingsolver uses forms of diction, metaphors, and symbolism.
Running Head: THE BEAN TREES. Abstract This book report deals with the Native American culture and how a girl named Taylor got away from what was expected of her as part of her rural town in Pittman, Kentucky. She struggles along the way with her old beat up car and gets as far west as she can. Along the way, she takes care of an abandoned child which she found in the backseat of her car and decides to take care of her.
They say that growing up is hard to do, and it certainly was for Taylor Greer, which is why she couldn't wait to leave her home in Pittman County, Kentucky. The novel, The Bean Trees, written by Barbara Kingsolver, follows Taylor's story of growing up, leaving home, and accepting responsibility. Along the way Taylor is given a child, Turtle, and she struggles with accepting the responsibility of raising a child. Kingsolver's choices for point of view, setting, conflict, theme, characterization, and style throughout the plot help create an uplifting story about love and what it means to be a family.
Abandonment plays a major role in Barbara Kingsolver's novel. It links all the characters together. Once one abandons, or is abandoned, they find someone else. They all help each other grow and become stronger. Even with something as horrible and hurtful as abandonment, hope can be found. Taylor explains it perfectly to Turtle when she talks about bean trees, "'There's a whole invisible system for helping out the plant that you'd never guess was there.' I loved this idea. 'It's just the same as with people. The way Edna has Virgie, and Virgie has Edna, and Sandi has Kid Central Station, and everyone has Mattie" (227-228). Everyone is linked together and each person has someone to help. This whole cycle is caused by abandonment. The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver shows that can be hope and love found in any situation, even in abandonment.
There were many sacrificial elements that existed in The Bean Trees. Sacrifices that the characters in the novel made for the benefit of others or themselves. These sacrifices played a role almost as significant as some of the characters in the book. Some prime examples of these sacrifices are Mattie’s will to offer sanction to illegal immigrants, the fact that Taylor sacrificed the whole success of her excursion by taking along an unwanted, abused Native-American infant, and Estevan and Esperanza’s decision to leave behind their daughter for the lives of seventeen other teacher union members.
The Bean Trees is a novel which shows Taylor’s maturation; it is a bildungsroman story. Taylor is a developing or dynamic character. Her moral qualities and outlook undergo a permanent change. When the novel begins, Taylor is an independent-minded young woman embarking on an adventure to a new world. She has no cares or worries. She is confident in her abilities, and is determined to make it through life on her own. As she discovers new things and meets new people, Taylor is exposed to the realities of the world. She learns about the plight of abandoned children and of illegal immigrants. She learns how to give help and how to depend upon the help of others. As she interacts with others, those people are likewise affected by Taylor. The other developing characters are Lou Ann Ruiz, Turtle, and Esperanza. Together they learn the importance of interdependence and find their confidence.
Another different thing about the story was when the events took place. They showed the pigs walking on their hind legs after they showed when Jessie couldn’t tell the difference between the humans and the pigs.
Betty Smith’s novel A Tree Grows In Brooklyn is a tale of poignant family relationships and childhood and also of grim privation. The story revolves around the protagonist of the story, young Francie Nolan. She is an imaginative, endearing 11-year-old girl growing up in 1912, in Brooklyn, New York. The entire story revolves around Francie and the Nolan family, including her brother Neelie, her mother Katie and her father Johnny. An ensemble of high relief characters aids and abets them in their journey through this story of sometimes bleak survival and everlasting hope. As we find out, the struggle for survival is primarily focused against the antagonist of this story, the hard-grinding poverty afflicting Francie, the Nolan’s and Brooklyn itself. The hope in the novel is shown symbolically in the “The “Tree of Heaven””. A symbol used throughout the novel to show hope, perseverance and to highlight other key points.
...People respond to the three pigs because either they have been in the pigs’ position, or they are ready to learn from the pigs’ experience. Everyone faces his own personal “wolf” that bares its teeth and threatens to blow away his foundation, but “The Three Little Pigs” offers hard work and determination as a solution to any problem that seems insurmountable. Proper preparation prevents poor performance regardless of the situation, and the three pigs show that sometimes, a poor performance might be the last one.