49 pages • 1 hour read

The Bean Trees

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1988

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-3

Chapters 4-6

Chapters 7-10

Chapters 11-13

Chapters 14-17

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

Vegetables

The Bean Trees uses vegetables to symbolize how both people and nature can exhibit signs of growth in difficult environments when they have the right types of support. When Taylor first arrives in Tucson, she’s amazed that Mattie can grow a vegetable garden in the desert. Mattie demonstrates how even the harsh, dry environment of Arizona can produce plentiful food if given the right kind of care. Turtle’s obsession with plants and vegetable words further explores this symbol. When she begins to talk, she’ll only say the names of vegetables in the garden, connecting her growth and resiliency to the growth and resiliency of the plants. This culminates in her discovery of the “bean trees,” otherwise known as wisteria vines, which produce seeds due to a mutually beneficial relationship with microorganisms in the soil known as rhizobia.

The novel links the ability to grow vegetables to nourish the body with food to the strong community bonds that Taylor develops in Tucson. The text equates vegetables and people since both need a healthy environment, which requires an ecological web of collaboration. At the end of the novel, Turtle’s song exemplifies how vegetables represent the need for humans to work together:

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She watched the dark highway and entertained me with her vegetable-soup song, except that now there were people mixed in with the beans and potatoes: Dwayne Ray, Mattie, Esperanza, Lou Ann and all the rest. And me. I was the main ingredient (312).

Turtle’s song literally mixes together the names of plants with the names of the people she depends on, representing how all are important parts of life and must collaborate in order to overcome the challenges of their environment.

Birds

Signifying marginalized populations such as Indigenous peoples, birds are a recurring symbol throughout the novel. Taylor frequently observes birds trying their best to create homes and survive in the desert, paralleling her own life. Her description of birds often underscores similarities between her precarious economic situation and the behavior of birds. For example, after moving across the country and encountering other people like Lou Ann who have been uprooted from their homes, Taylor thinks, “There must be transients in the bird world too, rumple-featured outcasts that naturally seek out each other’s company in inferior and dying trees” (191). Birds, like the characters in the novel, are migratory and must sometimes find places to survive in unknown and hostile landscapes like the Sonoran desert.

The novel specifically compares certain birds to Indigenous populations, denoting how they’ve been historically forced out of their native lands and imprisoned. For example, during the car trip to Oklahoma, Estevan reveals “that the national symbol of the Indian people in Guatemala was the quetzal, a beautiful green bird with a long, long tail […] if you tried to keep this bird in a cage, it died” (257). Likewise, Estevan and Esperanza would have died had they remained in Guatemala. On a larger scale, the symbol of the quetzal bird suggests that oppressing Indigenous populations and restricting their rights is equivalent to genocide, leading to the deaths of people and the destruction of their culture.

Names

A recurring motif in The Bean Trees, names are frequently associated with the question of identity. When Taylor leaves her home in Kentucky to find her own way in the world, she changes her name, figuratively separating her former self from her new self. By choosing a new name from a roadside sign for the town of Taylorville, Taylor suggests that she’s no longer tied to the place where she grew up and that she’s free to find a new community. Similarly, when Taylor meets Turtle, she doesn’t know the baby’s name. Eventually, Taylor decides to call her Turtle, “on account of her grip” (48), suggesting that a name should reflect a person’s behavior and notable characteristics, especially those denoting strength. While Taylor eventually discovers that Turtle’s birth name was April, she opts to continue to call her child Turtle, representing her chosen motherhood.

In contrast, Estevan and Esperanza’s names become a way to separate their true identities from those they’re forced to assume as political refugees in the US. In public, Estevan introduces them as Steven and Hope, Americanized translations of their Spanish names. When they help Taylor adopt Turtle, Estevan and Esperanza also take on a false last name: Two Two. They borrow this name so that they can pose as Cherokee, which isn’t their ethnic identity but helps protect them from deportation. While Estevan plans to begin going by Steven permanently, Taylor encourages him to keep using his Spanish name in private and among close friends. Estevan and Esperanza don’t want to take on these new identities but are forced to by circumstance. For this reason, keeping their original names is a form of protest, representing how they refuse to completely abandon their native Guatemalan culture.