The Bean Trees Bird Analysis

Sylvia goes back to her grandmother's house after finding the white heron but “ does not speak after all, though the old grandmother fretfully rebukes her, and the young man’s kind, appealing eyes are looking straight in her own” (202). Sylvia struggles to choose between telling the white heron’s location to the hunter or saving a potentially important part of nature. She never made a decision before meeting with the hunter, so this must have been her first experience yet she must face decision-making as a way of character development. The hunter expects that Sylvia would tell the location of the white heron by his manipulation and Sylvia’s infatuation with him. The hunter “can make them rich with money; he has promised it, and they are poor now” (202).

This quote shows the author acknowledging why the caged bird is harming itself. This quote is important because the bird knows freedom is impossible and so it would bash its wing against the bars until it is free. “Caged Bird”, the poem, shows the contrast between the free bird and the caged bird. Maya Angelou depicts the free

One of my favorite American writers, Alex Haley is quoted in Carol Vanderheyden’s book, A Touch of Class, saying “Anytime you see a turtle up on top of a fence post, you know he had some help” (Vanderheyden, p. 60). Not only does this quote strike my funny bone and fill my head with colorful imagery of a turtle mounted on top of a white picket fence post on the Haley farm in Tennessee, it strikes me as applicable to the ethical dilemmas that face those of us who embark upon careers in helping professions such as Marriage and Family Therapy. The imagery of the turtle on the post raises some interesting questions. Why did someone put the turtle there in the first place given that turtles aren’t traditionally climbers? Did some helpful Samaritan intervene on the turtle’s behalf because the conditions on the ground put its life in jeopardy?

In two poems “Sympathy” written by Paul Laurence Dunbar and “Caged Bird” written by Maya Angelou talk about a poor bird that is trapped in a cage and wants to be free. It longs for everything that the free bird has but it cannot achieve it. In both of the poems, there is a use of comparisons between freedom and nature. It is also interpreted from the poems that the use of a song is a form of coping for the birds. Both of the birds sing for their freedom and sing through their pain.

The short story symbolizes a bird in a cage that wants to get out of it and be a free bird. The African Americans could not get out of that cage for a while so they had to spread some joy which brings in the birds singing part. A part of the joy for Maya growing through this tough era was spending great time with Mrs. Flowers. In the poem the writer states “But a bird that stalks down his narrow cage can seldom see through his bars of rage” (Angelou).

If you ever felt this way you certainly would have felt like the birds in these poems. In the poems “Sympathy” by Paul Laurence Dunbar and “Caged Bird” by Maya Angelou, both portray captive birds that sing. However in “Sympathy”, the bird pleads with god for freedom, whereas in “Caged Bird” the captive bird calls for help from a free bird. In “Sympathy” the bird knows what freedom feels like since there was a time where the bird was once free, but now is trapped. In the first stanza the use of imagery revealed how freedom felt before the bird was caged.

Multiple plots in The Bean Trees increase suspense and depth in the story. Mattie works at a tire place where she meets Taylor, and Taylor can tell that there is more than what meets the eye with Mattie, which leads to a subplot. Mattie's home is a place for immigrants, estevan and esperanza being two of those immigrants. Estevan and Esperanza's lives quickly shifted when Mattie's place became a safe house. Taylor takes them off to start lives in Oklahoma, where they end up helping take care of turtle.

Sylvia is also interested in birds as the hunter. However, unlike men who readily kill birds for abstract knowledge, Sylvia loves birds as living friends and literally shares her own food and saves the lives of birds. In the typical fairy tale woman growth structure, the princess of the forest, in love, accepts the prince’s views of nature and women without any conflict, leaving nature then goes to the (patriarchal) society as a passive partner. Therefore, after the emergence of a young man who wakes up ‘women’s heart’, it becomes a key issue for Sylvia’s growing attitude towards and how she treats herself as a

For example, he uses “Druids would have forsaken their oaks to worship in them” which personifies the oaks worshipping the druids which plays a role along the stage of imagery. Furthermore, Thoreau also personifies the chicken at Field’s home (“The chickens, which had also taken shelter here from the rain, stalked about the room like members of the family, too humanized.”) saying that they were like Field’s family. However, he used the chickens that personification of the chickens as a shield and sword to express that the family were like the chickens rather than the other way around to avoid sounding as rude if he has said the family acted like chickens. The pathos was heavily centered on his accidental visit to John Field's family from the falling rain when he and Field’s discussed about what they work for and what America was. For instance, Thoreau stated, “But the only true America is that country...For I purposely talked to him as if he were a philosopher, or desired to be one,” to express his philosophical tone and his feelings about John.

While Melanie, waits outside for Cathy, a murder of crows develops behind her. The feeling of why the birds are doing this in the first place is unsettling and puzzling. Melanie throughout the attacks tries to figure out why the birds are only attacking Bodega Bay specifically only when she arrives to town. As the attacks from the birds intensify, the feeling of uncanniness increases because the