Motherhood In The Bean Trees

“Mama always knew barefoot and pregnant was not my style. She knew” (3). Prediction 3. This story could be about Taylor keeping her values or breaking them. The normality of Kentuckians during this time was to become pregnant at 16 and drop out of school.

In the book The Bean Trees, by Barbara Kingsolver, the main character, Taylor Greer, leaves her hometown of Pittman, Kentucky to start a new life with her new “daughter”, Turtle. Taylor first follows the American Dream by changing her name from Marietta to Taylor. Her new identity was a pivotal moment in moving forward from her old life when she passed the town, Taylorville and believed “there was enough destiny in it to satisfy me”(16). Taylor soon starts her life by meeting Lou Ann, a single mother to Dwayne Ray, and decides to live with her. This symbolizes Taylor settling down and officially staying in Tucson, Arizona (101). Other characters who define the American Dream are Esperanza and Estevan. They had to flee from Guatemala because they were apart of the Teachers Union and many people were after them trying to kill them. Esperanza’s brother and friends were killed and her daughter, Ismene, was taken from her and Estevan on

In the beginning of the story we see that Taylor is an average teenage girl living with a single mother. She says, “But I stayed in school. I was not the smartest or even particularly outstanding but I was there and staying out of trouble” (3). She was called “Missy” for a lot of her childhood

There are many relationships in bean trees, and the author focuses on females and their family relationships. Taylor and Turtle is one of the main major part in the book. For example, when Tylor first meet turtle, they leave as a new form of family. Most people think family is people who are related with you in blood like parents, sisters, and brothers. However, family is more than that, what family mean is love, care, and you feel safe with them. When Taylor moved in with Lou Ann and her son, her family becomes even bigger than before. They support and help each other in difficult situations by sharing their experiences. Taylor makes many risks to keep turtle with her as a family. She starts taking care of her, and make sure that she is safe. The major theme in the beam trees was family formed, and Tylor starts consider Turtle her family when she start taking care of her appearance, taking care of her heath, and making sure she is safe.

Tan develops her relationship with the audience by allowing us inside of her head and her private conversation that she had with her mom after Robert left. This helps to appeal to the emotions of the audience

Everyone adjusts to change differently. For example, the character Lou Ann, had a baby and her husband left her. There are several ways that she could have handled it. On one hand she could have said, ?To heck with him, good riddance.? But she chose to take it hard, she slipped into a form of depression and was easily pushed around by others, because she was afraid of them leaving her if they got mad. Taylor helped her change all that.

The book Do Parents Matter? written by Judith Rich Harris discuss the topic of nature versus nurture when raising a child. Her books discuss how parents do not influence the child’s personality and how there are many different ways a child personality is created.

Taylor is raised in a non-traditional setting; her mother, Alice Greer, is a single mother takes care of Taylor by herself. Alice had been married before, but her husband told her not to get pregnant and so when she did he left, and she tells Taylor that this was the best deal she ever made. She is extremely supportive of Taylor, in all that she does, but also expects the very best from her. Taylor knows this saying “then no matter what I did, whatever I came home with, she acted like it was the moon I had just hung up in the sky and plugged in all the stars. Like I was that good” (Kingsolver 10). Alice takes on both the

Kingsolver strongly disagrees with Socrates on the role of the mother in the family. While Socrates sees no need for a single maternal influence, Kingsolver entire writing centers on the importance of motherhood. When Taylor leaves Kentucky to head out into the world on her own, she leaves behind her mother, who has played a significant role in creating the strong woman that Taylor has become. Taylor frequently comments on the many things she learned from her mother, who urged her to talk to her teacher about the job at the hospital, and encouraged her that barefoot and pregnant was not [her] style (3). Taylor's mother wouldn't allow her daughter to become like all the other girls in their town, but rather, she hoped for her success in life. She was a positive role model, an idea that

Author use many symbolism in the book The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver. She uses symbolism because it makes it easier for readers to understand the deeper meaning or feeling of the character or the events that are happening. For example, author uses the symbolism of bean trees as transformation and Ismene as the abandoned children to show the deeper meaning of them.

The theme of The Bean Trees is: Single motherhood is accompanied with struggles and hardships nevertheless, in the end; the love for their child outweighs all. Taylor begins her journey with distaste for the idea of motherhood and how one’s life has to change for that child. In spite of that, when she is forced into the role of Turtle’s mother, her viewpoint begins to change from a negative perspective to a positive one as she starts to care about the child. By the time the finale of the novel comes to be Taylor does not just care for Turtle but loves her with all her heart and shows that by adopting her as her own child.

All around the world people are moving to find a better life, over 3.3% of the world's population are international migrants. People are always going through a rebirth from when they get a job to becoming a family or when they move. Rebirth is not always a big change, but it always changes life some way or the other. The characters in The Bean Trees lives are constantly changing during the whole book. Throughout The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver, there is a common theme of rebirth that the characters Taylor, Turtle, Estevan and Esperanza all experience.

The strength of the female population is constantly increasing. Women are gaining the courage to be stronger and more independent. Women are proving that they are just as strong as men, they are becoming CEO’s and running for president. Barbara Kingsolver wrote these three main supporting characters going through difficult events, but making it through them with the strength they have as single females. The female strength in these three women is one of the main themes in the book The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver.

Before leaving on her journey west, Taylor had been living with her single mother, Alice Greer. Since the day Taylor was born, she and Alice both depended on each other for most everything. By leaving, Taylor was gaining independence for both her and her mother alike. In Arizona Taylor lived with Lou Ann Ruiz, a fellow Kentuckian who was also new to raising a child alone. Both Lou Ann and Taylor were able to discover new sides of themselves and learn how to live without the help of a man (in Lou Ann’s case), or

A positive mind is what is needed the most for when you are trying to make a huge life decision. In The Bean Trees we see some characters that have the biggest hearts and open minds. This leads to them caring for other people, even if they are not related, even if they just met them. There is this article named “Brainology” that talks about the impact and the importance of having a open, or what they call a growth mindset. The idea is that with a growth mindset you are more likely not to give up on challenges right away. Whereas a fixed mindset as soon as you fail you feel as if you’re not going to get it and you give up. We see this in the book throughout the whole story. We see this esoechaily with the mother figures, even though Lou Anne has low self esteem and frightened of everything we see her build her confidence throughout the book. We see this mindset with Esmeralda, helping Taylor out in the end with a really big favor. We even see this with the social worker that questions Taylor. She sees that Taylor really cares for Turtle and goes out of her way to help her adopt her. This growth mindset runs through all the women in the story because they have to be driven in order to have a good life.