Critical Analysis of The Bean Trees by Barabara Kingsolver
Critical Analysis of The Bean Trees by Barabara Kingsolver
A women can undertake a journey for many reasons: to escape, to seek a new way of life, to find adventure, to find love, to discover oneself or to simply keep moving. In the novel The Bean Trees by Barabara Kingsolver, Taylor the main character sets off on a journey for all these reasons. On her journey to self discovery Taylor Greer manages to over come her weaknesses
The beans that are continually revealed throughout the novel represent Taylor’s life. The earliest mention of the beans took place when Taylor takes a close look at the reality of her life. “I had never done anything more interesting for a living than… picking bugs off somebody’s bean vines for a penny a piece.” (Pg 4) The beans so far are a symbol of Taylor’s weaknesses, as she and the beans are both of poor quality. Subsequently, Taylor and Turtle are in the garden and…
“For the next half hour she sat quietly between the squash hills, playing with her own beans. Finally she buried them there on the spot where they were all to be forgotten, until… a ferocious thicket of beans cam plowing up through the squashes.” (Pg. 89)
Gradually, the beans are becoming of some significance in the novel, since they are truly beginning to echo Taylor’s life. Just as the beans did, Taylor begun her life without a great deal of impact on anyone, only to come plowing up and impact people where they did not expect it. At the end of the novel, the reader again encounters the beans for the last time. Although this time, the reader captures the complete significance of the beans.
“Wisteria vines…thrive in poor soil…Their secret is something called rhizobia. These are microscopic bugs that live underground in little knots in the roots…Wisteria vines on their own would just barely get by, but put them together with rhizobia and they make miracles.” (Pg 229)
The beans, symbolism reflects Taylor’s development throughout her life
perfectly. Taylor grew in poor soil and without the influence of the people, whom act like rhizobia that she encounters, she would have never been able to fight her weaknesses and realize her strengths. Taylor grows to become more mature and at the end at the...