The Bean Trees Character Analysis
In The Bean Trees, by Barbara Kingsolver, there are many characters that come from different backgrounds and have different personalities. Turtle is a three year old, Native American child who is picked up in Cherokee Nation, OK and moves to Tucson, AZ, where she develops an obsession with plants. Taylor is a young woman originally from Kentucky who moves to Tucson to pursue a different life. On her way, she picks up Turtle and later adopts her. Esperanza, a Guatemalan immigrant, is quiet and shy, but befriends Taylor and Turtle on her way to safety in the United States. Even though these characters have vastly different backgrounds, they all have one thing in common, their connection to plants.
Turtle is often associated with plants and vegetables.
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Turtle’s vegetable-soup song mentions the people she accepts and cares for in her life and who she has a strong connection with. Esperanza, a Guatemalan immigrant builds a strong bond with Turtle as they spend quite a bit of time together on their road trip to Oklahoma with Taylor and Estevan. Because of the strong bond that they have built, Esperanza is mentioned as an ingredient in Turtle’s vegetable-soup. Although Esperanza has a positive connotation with plants and vegetables late in this novel, they were earlier used to describe her rough past in Guatemala and difficult time adjusting to her new life living as an immigrant in the United States. Earlier on in this novel, Estevan explains to Taylor that when he and Esperanza lived in Guatemala, “police would come and set their houses and fields on fire and make them move again” (195) in order to show the common people their superiority. During Taylor and Turtle’s first time meeting Esperanza and Estevan, Esperanza is reminded of her lost daughter Ismene by Turtle and “looked blanched, like a boiled vegetable” (93). Esperanza shows that plants and vegetables can have a positive and negative connection to people as she, present day, is positively compared to a vegetable, but her past has a negative connection to plants and
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755 Words | 4 PagesAs the novel progresses, Taylor begins to mature and take on the motherhood of Turtle’s life, the day she first met in Oklahoma. Kingsolver uses motherhood to proclaim Taylor’s devotion to Turtle; just the same way Taylor’s mother supported her back in Kentucky. In Arizona, “the clouds were pink and flat and hilarious looking like the hippo ballerinas in a Disney Movie” (Kingsolver 35). Taylor had never seen anything like this back in Pittman Kentucky. The whole scene looked unreal to Taylor.
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1454 Words | 6 PagesIn the book The Bean Trees, by Barbara Kingsolver, a young woman, named Taylor Greer, seeks a new change and home by moving to Arizona. Where she unexpectedly ends up caring for a young Indian girl nicknamed Turtle. Taylor reaches Arizona and makes a lot of new friends, even two Guatemalan immigrants, named Estevan and Esperanza. Since Taylor has Turtle and has a
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481 Words | 2 Pages“The Bean Trees,” by Barbara Kingsolver, is a novel surrounding the life of Taylor Greer as she travels west while discovering the hardships of motherhood due to raising a three-year-old American Indian child named Turtle. Although Taylor grew up in Kentucky, she travels west to Tucson, Arizona, in which she moves in with Lou Ann and finally embarks on the journey that is her life. It is evident that feminism and womanhood is a central theme throughout this novel, as both Lou Ann and Taylor have to raise children on their own. Another crucial theme seen throughout this novel is transformation which is seen in most, if not, all, of the characters. The relationship between Taylor and Turtle exemplifies the glorious bond between a mother and her daughter, showing how Taylor transformed from once being appalled at the idea of raising Turtle
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