Gender Biases In Barbara Kingsolver's The Bean Trees

Cassie Logan, the central protagonist of Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred Taylor, has, all her life, been shown confidence, love, and pride in herself, her history, and, most importantly , her family. During this year, though she is only nine years old, Cassie is shown the real world of cruel racism and supposed white superiority. Many people treat blacks as if they are inferior to whites, such as Miss Crocker, the Night Men, and Lillian Jean Simms. These people have specifically impacted dark-skinned Cassie; they have tried to degrade her, and destroy her pride and confidence. Throughout my essay I will be discussing how the characters listed above have tried to reduce Cassie’s worth--only because of her skin color-- and if they have succeeded or not.

Over the years, immigrants have influenced many aspects of American society and has had a vital role in shaping the United States to what it is today. According to the US Census Bureau, an agency of the U.S. Federal Statistical System responsible for producing data about the American people and economy, “non-Hispanic white population in the U.S. declined from 85 percent in 1965 to 62.2 percent in 2014, and the forecast is for the percentage of non-Hispanic whites to fall to 43.6 percent in 2060” (qtd. in Walsh). Despite the rise of immigrants and the profound impact they have had on society, many immigrants face perpetual discrimination; this idea has appeared many times throughout Barbara Kingsolver’s novel The Bean Trees. Taking place during the 1970s, the main character, Taylor, moves from Kentucky to Arizona; along the way, she meets Esperanza and Estevan, illegal immigrants from Guatemala. As she gets to know them better, she notices they are forced to live a monotonous, arduous life which implies that immigrants face prejudice from Americans who claim to be accepting. Through the use of

In the novel The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver, Taylor faces many obstacles. Throughout the obstacles that Taylor faces she grows and changes into a new person unlike the one that she was before. Taylor is a girl who does not want to be stuck in her home state of Kentucky any longer. She leaves her mother in Kentucky to try and find a way to create herself a new life. Becoming a mother so quickly and helping Esperanza and Estevan are obstacles that Taylor faces during trying to start her new life. Since she faces some obstacles she grows to become more loving and more selfless.

Have you ever wondered what all immigrants have in common? In the Bean Trees by Barbra Kingsolver it tells about some immigrants from Guatemala. The immigrant experience is classified by not giving up, escaping a past worse life, and making sacrifices.

Women , now as much as ever, struggle with gender roles and expectations in society. For example, many would be surprised to learn that a woman who does the same job as a man makes 77 cents for every dollar a man makes. Barbara Kingsolver exemplifies this idea in her novel The Bean Trees, a story about a young woman who struggles to survive as she travels across the country from Pittman County to Tucson, OK, illegally adopting a baby along the way. Barbara Kingsolver's The Bean Trees argues that American societies’ gender roles influence the treatment of women as well as shapes their character and personality, pressuring women across America to conform to the propagandized stereotypes.

Indirect Characterization: This quote shows the character’s perseverance and uniqueness while also foreshadowing. It shows the relationship between Taylor and her mother and the difference of Taylor and her environment/ society

Despite its dull, ordinary setting, “I Stand Here Ironing” by Tillie Olsen is an extremely deep short story covering complex socio-economic issues spanning over two—very eventful—decades. The story shows how economic hardships could physically alter the stereotypical gender roles, while cultural traditions kept them mentally intact. When these two elements contradicted each other, they left women, like Tillie Olsen’s character, feeling emotionally responsible for the consequences. Although her husband left her and she was forced to assume the role of both the breadwinner and the homemaker at only nineteen years old, she blames herself for neglecting what was thought to be her primary duty as a woman: motherhood. As the reader can tell from

Walker’s essay shows the dehumanization and abuse that black women have endured for years. She talks about how their creativity was stifled due to slavery. She also tells how black women were treated more like objects than human beings. They entered loveless marriages and became prostitutes because of the injustice upon them. Walker uses her mother’s garden to express freedom, not only for her but for all the black women who had been wronged. Walker described her mother as radiant when she was planting, her work outshining the wrongdoings done to her and the people before her. The garden was where her mother could make truly make “art.” The garden was also a representation of the creativity of the women who hold a talent close to their heart

It is often said that a new definition of a woman arose in the 1920s. But is that true? While most women experienced many newfound freedoms in the 1920s, black women could not explore these freedoms as easily as white women. In the novel Passing by Nella Larsen, Irene Redfield and Clare Kendry grew up in Chicago together and are now both two wives and mothers in New York City during the 1920s, but there is a big difference between them. The novel’s title refers to light-skinned black women masquerading as white women for social benefits. Irene and Clare are both light enough to “pass”, but only Clare chooses to pass everyday. Irene passes in trivial situations like getting a cab, buying movie tickets, or getting a table at a restaurant, but

Social prejudice is shown throughout Harper Lee’s award winning book, To Kill a Mockingbird. Harper Lee powerfully analyses the theme social prejudice, and its effect on people. Such as how the

Individuals have different views of the world and to be fair this world has many flaws that individuals can’t see because they’re not willing to see those flaws. These flaws are seen by Barbara Kingsolver, the author of The Bean Trees. In the society, there are many social justice issues that people think it is normal for it to be happening, those social justice issues can be child abuse, racism, over-sexualization of women and poverty. Barbara Kingsolver is an author of the book called The Bean Trees which is a story about the journey of Taylor from Kentucky to Arizona. This journey of hers brings out a purpose to show these social justice issues within the society we had and we still have. This story showed lots of examples of the social

In the passage “What is poverty?”, the author Jo Goodwin Parker, describes a variety of things that she considers to portray the poverty in which she lives in. She seems to do this through her use of first-person point of view to deliver a view of poverty created by a focused use of rhetorical questions, metaphors, imagery, and repetition to fill her audience with a sense of empathy towards the poor.

Parenting has been a long practice that desires and demands unconditional sacrifices. Sacrifice is something that makes motherhood worthwhile. The mother-child relationship can be a standout amongst the most convoluted, and fulfilling, of all connections. Women are fuel by self-sacrifice and guilt - but everyone is the better for it. Their youngsters, who feel adored; whatever is left of us, who are saved disagreeable experiences with adolescents raised without affection or warmth; and mothers most importantly. For, in relinquishing, a mother feels strong and liberal; and in guild she finds the motivation to right wrong.

​The words immortalized in Alice Walker’s short story “The Flowers” resonated with me in a profound manner. Myop’s adventure from the property that her family shares to the woods is one that she has embarked upon many times before. This time even though she doesn’t realize it, everything will be different. Walker’s character may not understand the consequences that come with the encounter with the lynched black man, the thought that crosses my mind while reading this is that although she has no idea of what awaits her in the future, of the cruelty and injustice that unfortunately runs rampant in today’s society, she can still find a place to be proud and hopeful of who she is.

Many believe that the parents of the Sandy Hook victims conspired to murder their children, but what they fail to realize is that all their “ evidence” is just circumstantial. In court all types of various evidence is presented to the jury. According to Citizens Information “ The general rule is that circumstantial evidence is admissible. However, the courts are careful when the only evidence in a case is circumstantial evidence. Circumstantial evidence must be closely examined and it must be looked at cumulatively. In other words, a court would be very slow and unsettled to convict a defendant on the basis of a few pieces of circumstantial evidence” ( 4). In court the Sandy Hook Conspiracy would have trouble being found true due to the giant amount of