Themes in Barbara Kingsolver's The Bean Trees
Themes in the novel “The Bean Trees” by Barbara Kingsolver include the importance of family and the need for community as emotional support systems for individuals facing hardships. As the individuals face their hardships, Kingsolver binds them together with support, forming a community that at times functions like a big extended family, however non-traditional it may be. Kingsolver not only illustrates the importance of family as an emotional support system in today's society, but the changing face of the family unit itself, one that is defined more by love than by structure.
Alice Greer, the first strong women introduced in the novel, serves as a role model for the many other women who arrive later in the novel. A single parent, Alice is the head of a non-traditional, yet highly functional family. The Greer family only includes two people: Alice and her daughter, Taylor. Although a single parent who struggles financially, Alice has raised Taylor as a confident young woman who will not be held back by things like the lack of a father or low economic status in their hometown: Pittman, Kentucky. Alice tells Taylor, "trading Foster for you was the best deal this side of the Jackson Purchase". As Taylor matures and sees unmarried, pregnant young women all around her, she finds the courage to ask for a job at the Pittman County Hospital lab. In this relationship, love, support, and mutual admiration define this two-person, non-traditional family. As Taylor recalls: "There were two things about Mama. One is she always expected the best out of me. And the other is that 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". Because of this strong mother-daughter relationship, Taylor finally finds the courage to leave Pittman altogether in order to escape unwed motherhood and to become the "best" person she can be.
Unlike Taylor's small childhood family, Taylor's new family does
Alice Greer, the first strong women introduced in the novel, serves as a role model for the many other women who arrive later in the novel. A single parent, Alice is the head of a non-traditional, yet highly functional family. The Greer family only includes two people: Alice and her daughter, Taylor. Although a single parent who struggles financially, Alice has raised Taylor as a confident young woman who will not be held back by things like the lack of a father or low economic status in their hometown: Pittman, Kentucky. Alice tells Taylor, "trading Foster for you was the best deal this side of the Jackson Purchase". As Taylor matures and sees unmarried, pregnant young women all around her, she finds the courage to ask for a job at the Pittman County Hospital lab. In this relationship, love, support, and mutual admiration define this two-person, non-traditional family. As Taylor recalls: "There were two things about Mama. One is she always expected the best out of me. And the other is that 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". Because of this strong mother-daughter relationship, Taylor finally finds the courage to leave Pittman altogether in order to escape unwed motherhood and to become the "best" person she can be.
Unlike Taylor's small childhood family, Taylor's new family does