The author Barbara Kingsolver once said, “Sometimes the strength of motherhood is greater than natural laws.” This means that mothers can go to great lengths and even break laws for their children. The Bean Trees follows Taylor’s attempts to raise her adopted daughter Turtle, focusing on what it takes to be a family and the alternative forms that family can take in the absence of the traditional mother-father-children family model. Taylor is fiercely protective of the small family she forms with Turtle, her best friend Lou Ann, and Lou Ann’s son Dwayne Ray in Tucson, Arizona as they all help each other “through hell and high water.” Taylor even figures out a way to legally adopt Turtle, not to prove that Turtle is a legitimate part of her family, …show more content…
Motherhood and the role of a mother plays a predominant part in "The Bean Trees". Taylor Greer, the protagonist, had a very good childhood with a mother who loved her and only her. Mama Greer raised Taylor as a single mother, and Taylor in return becomes a single mother when she gets custody of Turtle while traveling through Oklahoma. With her impending divorce from Angel, Lou Ann Ruiz raises Dwayne Ray by herself, just as the waitress Sandi raises her son Seattle alone. In a more abstract sense, Mattie is a single mother to her various refugees and compares herself to a parent to them on more than one occasion. The one mother in the novel who is not a single parent is Esperanza, yet she no longer parents the kidnapped Ismene. In this manner, Kingsolver idealizes the single mother and diminishes the position of the father, who in all of these cases is errant and irresponsible. In the case of Lou Ann, Angel, her husband leaves her while she is pregnant, the man who impregnates Sandi disavows that he is the father of
Diane von Furstenberg once stated “I wanted to be an independent woman, a woman who could pay for her bills, a woman who could run her own life.” Independence plays a big role in being able to be successful in life. Taylor, a girl that can be described as “different ,” is a person who is a strong believer in doing things by herself. She moved out when she learned how to drive and never went back. She gains a child and soon settles down in Tucson Arizona, where she starts her own life. In the novel The Bean Trees, by Barbara Kingsolver, there are many obstacles Taylor goes through to set the theme of independence.
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.
Working as a teacher serving at-risk four-year-old children, approximately six of her eighteen students lived in foster care. The environment introduced Kathy to the impact of domestic violence, drugs, and family instability on a developing child. Her family lineage had a history of social service and she found herself concerned with the wellbeing of one little girl. Angelica, a foster child in Kathy’s class soon to be displaced again was born the daughter of a drug addict. She had been labeled a troublemaker, yet the Harrisons took the thirty-hour training for foster and adoptive care and brought her home to adopt. Within six months, the family would also adopted Angie’s sister Neddy. This is when the Harrison family dynamic drastically changes and Kathy begins a journey with over a hundred foster children passing through her home seeking refuge.
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.
In consideration, many unexpected events can occur to us, which helps to shape one’s belief in something that they should avoid having. The novel, The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver portrays the life of Taylor Greer, a young and spirited woman who is brave enough to move out of a rural home in Kentucky with the goal of avoiding pregnancy. Little did Taylor know, she faces a human condition of accepting a three-year-old American Indian girl named Turtle. Throughout her journey, she creates many friendships with other people and love toward Turtle so there are many things that
The play A Raisin In The Sun by Lorraine Hansberry is about the Youngers, an African-American family, who receive a $10,000 life insurance check as a result of the death of Mama Younger’s husband. The play takes place in the 1950’s making race an important factor during the process of buying a house due to the "red lining system”. The red lining system was a way to define the value of a neighborhood after World War II based on the dominant race in an area; when the dominant race of the neighborhood was white, the value of the neighborhood went up and categorized as green lining. Whereas when the dominant race was black, the value of a neighborhood went down and was categorized as red lining. Generally the houses in the green lining neighborhoods were bigger and had more yard space, and the red lining neighborhoods had smaller yards and more cramped quarters. Mama’s aspiration is for her and her family to move into a green lining neighborhood in order to have a bigger house and yard in order to create more opportunities for her children and grandchildren. Mama’s plant symbolizes her dream of moving into a green lining neighborhood when Hansberry mentions that the plant does not get enough sunlight, Mama takes care of the plant each morning, and it is brought to the Youngers new house.
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.
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.
In her essay, “Motherhood: Who Needs It?”, Betty Rollin emphasizes the pressures of motherhood that society puts on women and highlights the fact that becoming a mother is not a natural instinct.
In the novel Purple Hibiscus, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a character named Beatrice also known as Mama, has many dynamic traits. Mama is a religious woman who respects and highly prioritizes her family. Mama’s husband Eugene becomes more abusive toward her children and herself which causes her to lose her unborn baby. In Mama’s mind and heart, she knows she has to protect her children so she makes the decision to poison Eugene. Mama’s character changes throughout the book, as she first starts as a very quiet and caring character but as Eugene’s abusiveness increases, it develops her into becoming a perpetrator that caused her to be very depressed.
In the opening scene of the play Mama goes to her plant and nurtures it. Mama tries to instill the value of family importance to her children as she struggles to keep them together and functioning (Kohorn). The plant symbolizes Mama's dreams of owning her own house. She uses part of the money to put a down payment on a house in a white neighborhood.
Motherhood is a traditional role for women. From the time they are young, girls are taught to grow up, marry and become mothers. Of course they can do other things with their lives like play sports, have careers, and travel, but an overwhelming amount of women want to be mothers no matter what else they accomplish with their lives. It is common knowledge that being a good mother is one of the hardest jobs in the world. It is to forever have a special link with another person or people and have a tremendous influence, maybe the most tremendous influence over their lives. Motherhood is a roller coaster ride for women, full of ups and downs, fears and accomplishments. But what happens when motherhood defines who a woman is? All children grow up, and while a woman is always a mother, children need their mothers less and less until eventually their dependence is very minimal. What happens to the woman whose singular role and purpose is no longer needed? In The Summer Before The Dark, and The Fifth Child, the maternal roles of Kate Brown, and Harriet Lovatt are analyzed and traditional motherhood behavior is deconstructed due to these characters’ experiences and relationships with their children.