Lisa Parker Snapping Beans

What does one expect to gain from a conversation while snapping beans on a back porch in a rural setting? What can an individual expect to occur during such a simple discussion that is introduced by the singing of gospels hymns? In “Snapping Beans”, Lisa Parker demonstrates a usage of the speaker relaying thoughts to the audience in her work. This reveals a character’s confession of struggles with an edited version of the other involved character in the conversation. Lisa Parker further concludes the theme of her work in a realization of life in general. The speaker represents a shy and over self-conscience individual who is searching for her happy medium, in the balance of the world. The author writes in a manner of style to present the characters’
“How’s school a-goin?” calmly asks the grandmother to the speaker, sending the speaker into a frenzy of all sorts (15). This simple question in “Snapping Beans” forecloses the speaker’s personal distress into overdrive. The grandmother can only make her own conclusions of the narrator’s newfound life from her granddaughter’s short responses. The speaker sets the right-doing, straight-forward standard of morals for the characters at the beginning of the poem in, “Snapping Beans”, as the narrator and the grandmother hum “What A Friend We Have In Jesus” (6). The two represent the religious characteristics of southern Christians deep in the Bible belt. Yet, the speaker relinquishes the opposite of these deep rooted religious values in her tales of life at school in the North, including stories of body piercings, drinking and sex, along with idolizing false prophets. This foreshadows the audience with how the narrator sways differently from the morals and standards she feels ties her to her home life. The narrator fears shame from her grandmother because of the blossoming lifestyle at school in the North that doesn’t quite correlate with her past life experiences within her sheltered southern