The Bean Trees
Major epiphanies are found in “The Bean Trees.” The characters, Taylor and Lou Ann, both have a major epiphany. Taylor’s epiphany is that a community is necessary for her. After Taylor and Turtle rent a room at the Hotel Republic and Taylor's money is gone, Taylor knows that she has to get a job to support herself and Turtle; however, she is wondering how she will be able to afford childcare for Turtle. After Taylor moves in with Lou Ann, she finds a community. Taylor learns over time that she can depend on Lou Ann and her neighbors to help care for Turtle. Mattie would sometimes have Turtle playing in the Jesus Is Lord Used Tires shop while Taylor is working.
Estevan and Esperanza also become Taylor's friends of her community.
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Lou Ann’s epiphany occurs when Lou Ann is insecure and has low self-esteem. This occurs when Angel comes to Lou Ann’s grandmother’s house to pack his things and leave again. He prompts Lou Ann to recognize that she feels indifferent toward Angel. Whether or not Angel lives with her does not matter. Her feelings about Angel's presence contrast with the feelings she had when her mother and grandmother. Angel describes women as, “Filling up the house.” Here, Lou Ann is beginning to recognize the strong female bonds between women and. When Taylor and Lou Ann meet, they both gradually encourage each other and they both learn about the importance of family and community. With Taylor's encouragement and example, Lou Ann becomes more self-confident. With this confidence, Lou Ann rejects Angel and becomes an independent woman. Lou Ann even gathers the courage to talk to Taylor about family and community, even though Taylor did not want to be in a community. "Taylor, remember that time you were mad at me because you didn't want us to act like a family? That all we needed was a little dog named Spot? Well, don't get mad, but I told somebody that you and Turtle and Dwayne Ray were my family. Somebody at work said, 'Do you have family at home?' And I said, 'Sure,' without even thinking. I meant you all. Mainly I guess because we've been through hell and high water together. We know each other's good and bad sides; stuff nobody else
In my own personal opinion, motherhood does not sound like an easy thing. I mean, think about it, all the responsibilities and precautions you have to take when it comes to taking care of a child. In The Bean Trees, Taylor takes on the role of a mother when she is given a child by a strange woman at a bar in Oklahoma. Even though this child was not legally hers, Taylor decided to care for Turtle.
Ann feels that as a woman, she should be grateful and happy just to have a kind husband who provides for her material needs. The tension between the way Ann is supposed to act as a farmer's wife and the way she actually feels causes her to bottle up her feelings of frustration and resentment. John's traditional understanding of gender roles prevents him from seeing how unhappy his wife has become. By sleeping with Steven, Ann is trying to find something she has been missing throughout her marriage. Unfortunately, she doesn’t find any satisfaction in her searches and just ends up with tremendous guilt.
Another example of how immigrants are mistreated is usually when they come to America. Although America is usually advertised as a “safe heaven” or “land of opportunity”, it could also be a very cruel and difficult place for foreigners to try and fit in. There was a part in the infamous book Of Mice and Men written by John Steinbeck where Crooks was not allowed to play cards or even sit at the same table as the other men because he was black (not originally from America). This example depicts how poorly immigrants can be treated in a so-called “land of opportunity”. The novel The Bean Trees written by Barbara Kingsolver contains yet another great example.
To began with, Symbolism is literary element used often in The Bean Trees and Mirror Image. In Kingsolvers book, symbolism is used in the very title The Bean Trees. Turtle’s first word is bean which she gets from seeing a wisteria plant that has gone into seed form and produced bean like pods. Later the author emphasizes the symbolism by having Turtle read about how the plant thrives in bad conditions.
At first Taylor is unsure about what her life may look like but by the end of the story the reader gets to see Taylor with her new family in Tucson, Arizona and predict what may happen next. Without Turtle, Taylor will not get to experience motherhood and will never learn the true definition of love maturity, and
Mr. Taylor illustrates his personal relationship with Cedric even going as far
Although she went and work in the factory to help out her sister Ana did not give up on her dream of attending college. Without her mother knowing and help from her high school teacher she began to fill out college and scholarship applications. After finally being accepted into the University of Columbia, Carmen takes a stand and make Ana to but her family before college. Ana has more curves than her mother would like her to have. Carmen thinks just because Ana is “fat” she will not be able to find a husband.
Uncle gus is a real jerk to ty, he made ty quit his passion of football and even playing for the middle school team. Uncle gus makes ty work at his cleaning business. Instead of ty fulfilling his dreams he is stuck cleaning houses. Maybe someday his dreams can come
After this incident, Taylor was convinced that she can’t take care of Turtle since she couldn’t keep her safe from the world. According to The Bean Trees, “…That they have the right to take her out of a perfectly good home and put her in some creepy orphanage where they probably make them sleep on burlap bags and feed them pig slop”(Kingsolver 235). Even though, Taylor believed that she can’t keep Turtle safe from this society where people try to hurt a child so young, on the other hand, Lou Ann thinks that Taylor can keep Turtle safer than anybody else. According to Abuse in America, “As of September 30, 2004, there were 517,000 children in foster care in the United States” (“Abuse in America”). This shows that people that are living the way that Lou Ann has described is not safe for children, not to mention that lots of people, because of poverty put their children
This is “bad news” for Taylor, because it means that the government has the right to legally take Turtle away from her. Since Taylor has “no legal claim” to Turtle, she must either find a way to adopt Turtle, or give her up to the government. Taylor has started to learn how to thrive with Turtle, but she must first go through the struggle of finding Turtle’s legal guardian, and having them give Turtle to her. Since she doesn’t even know the name of the woman who gave Turtle to her, finding her, or finding another way to adopt Turtle, will be one of Taylor’s hardest trials in stage three of her journey. After Taylor successfully adopts Turtle, they visit a library while waiting for
Ann Petry also uses the darkness as a vehicle to strengthen Lutie’s resolve to improve her life and be better able to provide for her son. Lutie has seen the light side of life and believes it is attainable for herself. She knows it is just a matter of trying hard enough, and working long enough, and saving enough (Petry 43). Later in Harlem, as Lutie walks past the dark, dirty storefronts, with their withered produce, her determination is strengthened to get out of her current situation; “the dark streets filled with shadowy figures that carried with them the horror of the places they lived in, places like her own apartment.”
Within the novel “The Bean Trees”, written by Barbara Kingsolver. Within the book, abuse is taken into different terms. Abuse is not only physical, but it can also be categorized as sexual, mental, verbal, psychological, financial, elder, and spiritual abuse. The only four types of abuse that were introduced into the book was sexual, physical, verbal, and The first type of abuse is child abuse.
Family members and close friends impact people’s lives in immeasurable ways. Octavia E. Butler uses this to develope Lauren in Parable of the Sower through interactions with the people around her. Growing up in a bleak area of a now dismal United States, her faithful upbringing contrasts with the necessary survival mentality demanded by the outside world. Two effectual characters in Lauren’s journey are her father, Reverend Olamina, and her younger brother, Keith. These two characters represent extremes of both devotion and destruction as they influence Lauren to choose her own path as an adult.
She then later had Taylor talking about her image of the murder and his lifestyle. Taylor said “I’m not sure what I was expecting him to be like, but the guy I see on the screen isn’t that. That neat, pretty weatherboard house isn’t it either. I thought he’d live in some dark, cave-like shack, alone hiding from the world.” This proved that we stereotype people and this can be a major mistake.
She talks about the dangers of female sexuality because it could ruin her life. She tells how to get the power of domesticity. She also tells her how her daughters sexual reputation should be instead of what it is. Even though female sexuality can be a diverse topic, Kincaid was able to stick to one view of female