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. Lou Ann is soft, motherly, and worrisome. Because of the fact that she is afraid of almost everything, she fits perfectly into …show more content…
We see Taylor go through a major transition from confident and stubborn to tenderhearted and doubtful. After Turtle’s terrible incident, Taylor constantly blames herself for what happened. “At night I lay listening to noises outside, listening to Turtle breathe, thinking: she could have been killed. So easily she could be dead right now.” (228) This shows how she now worries about things just as much as Lou Ann used to. Taylor is beginning to think like a worrisome mother. Taylor helps fill the missing masculine figure and lack of confidence in Lou Ann’s life. Lou Ann is far more womanly in a traditional sense than Taylor is, she expresses her conviction that marriages and love should last forever. Taylor is the complete opposite of Lou Ann and believes that no woman should be pushed to marry and get pregnant at a young age. Around chapter 11, Lou Ann undergoes a transformation from dependent housewife into strong single mother. The biggest evident change in Lou Ann is her feelings about Angel. We find out that Angel changes his mind about the divorce and wants …show more content…
Edna Poppy’s impaired vision causes her to rely on Virgie Mae to physically fill her lack of vision. “ I stood for a minute staring, trying to reorganize things in my mind. Edna buying all her clothes in one color, ever since age sixteen. Virgie’s grip on her elbow.” (195) Once Taylor finds out that Edna is blind, she puts all the pieces in her mind together. Lou Ann is also very surprised about this new information, having a hard time to believe that Edna Poppy was blind this whole time. Both Taylor and Lou Ann are shocked by this new finding because Edna seems so normal with the help of Virgie Mae. Virgie helps Edna see so well that no one would believe she was blind. Virgie Mae is stubborn, harsh, and has differing views on immigration, but relies on Edna Poppy to bring out the more caring and friendly side of her. ‘ And is this naked creature one of theirs? She looks like a little wild Indian.’( 141). “Mrs. Parsons muttered that she thought this was a disgrace. ‘Before you know it the whole world will be here jibbering and jabbering till we don't know it's America… Well, it’s the truth. They ought to stay put in their own dirt, not come here taking up jobs.’ (143). This demonstrates Virgie Mae’s strong view on immigration. Referring to Turtle as “naked creature” and asking if it's “one of their?” referring to Esperanza and Estevan.
The lngles family from Little House on the Prairie, a popular television series, demonstrates the working class. Mr. Ingles works while Mrs. Ingles takes care of the household duties. The family displays a genuin e happiness. They have no modern utilities, but they have each other. They have a strong love within their family, and worldly materials serve little importance to them. A typical family today displays tremendous difference s compared to the Ingles family. Jealously and competitiveness play a major part in showing these varia...
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
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.
Taylor's fears In the story, The Bean Trees, by Barbara Kingslover, we see a character named Taylor overcome several fears that she has. Taylor Greer, a woman who once saw a man being thrown several feet up into the air shortly after his tractor tire blew up, never really liked tires. She always seemed to think that the same thing might happen to her if she ever did something like, overfilling it too much with air. Her mom, who was fairly normal, decided to test Taylor's tire-changing skills shortly after she bought her ‘55 Volkswagen.
Junot Diaz’s “Wildwood” is a roller coaster of emotions. The author gives us a full view of the tempestuous relationship between Lola and her mother who discovers has breast cancer. Lola, a young girl who lives in New York with her brother and mother, early on we can see that Lola’s mother is particularly abusive and channels her frustrations towards her daughter. When her mother asks Lola to examine her breast for a lump, she has a premonition her life would change.
...e on her part. Throughout the story, the Mother is portrayed as the dominant figure, which resembled the amount of say that the father and children had on matters. Together, the Father, James, and David strived to maintain equality by helping with the chickens and taking care of Scott; however, despite the effort that they had put in, the Mother refused to be persuaded that Scott was of any value and therefore she felt that selling him would be most beneficial. The Mother’s persona is unsympathetic as she lacks respect and a heart towards her family members. Since the Mother never showed equality, her character had unraveled into the creation of a negative atmosphere in which her family is now cemented in. For the Father, David and James, it is only now the memories of Scott that will hold their bond together.
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.
Alice Walkers “Everyday Use”, is a story about a family of African Americans that are faced with moral issues involving what true inheritance is and who deserves it. Two sisters and two hand stitched quilts become the center of focus for this short story. Walker paints for us the most vivid representation through a third person perspective of family values and how people from the same environment and upbringing can become different types of people.
From the first Colonial settlements to the Civil War, a great many changes took place within American society. Increasing industrialization in the North and an increase in large-scale farming coupled with reliance on slave labor in the South led to very different values and socially accepted lifestyles than were commonplace in the early colonies. In both of these societies, there was a shift from a community subsistence existence to one of markets and wages. These changes are reflected nowhere more distinctly and thoroughly than in the individual “microcosms of society:” the American family.
Cather and Fitzgerald regard keeping a close family in integrity as a success. In their perspective, the traditional gender role-playing,
Currently, families face a multitude of stressors in their lives. The dynamics of the family has never been as complicated as they are in the world today. Napier’s “The Family Crucible” provides a critical look at the subtle struggles that shape the structure of the family for better or worse. The Brice family is viewed through the lens of Napier and Whitaker as they work together to help the family to reconcile their relationships and the structure of the family.
The phrase, “But we were cut out of the same mud, I suppose, just two more dirty-kneed kids scrapping to beat hell and trying to land in our feet” (The Bean Trees, 2), tells me that the main character, being, Marietta Greer (also referred to as, Taylor Greer or Missy) believes she and Newt Hardbine, an acquaintance, face parallel circumstances. Referring to the type of lifestyle they were surrounded by and must cope with; which was one where her community, is constantly struggling and where its residents don’t have much of a future. The Novel describes it as a poor rural area in Pittman County, Kentucky, where the chances of prospering were dim. As a matter of fact, the setting relates to the real life of Barbara Kingsolver, the author of The Bean Trees, seeing that it is where she grew up.
A family is something a person considers as his/her own. One often identifies themselves with their kin. If one were given to their parents in such a socialist society as the one described in the novella, one would have a “ biased” love for the people who created and...