In this story “The Bean Trees” by Barbara Kingslover we meet Taylor Greer, an average teenager from Pittman, Kentucky. Even though Taylor has never been through anything truly horrific in her life how can she truly understand how unpleasant the world can be? Taylor’s personal growth in the “The Bean Trees” is a part of an uncertain journey because Taylor is thrown into motherhood and forced to see the bad experiences people go through in life.
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 but when she was three she said, “I stamped my foot and told my mother not to call me Marietta but Miss Marietta” (2). From Taylor’s childhood I find that she had a sense of personal pride and could defend herself. These really are great attributes and we really see these attributes grow more and mature throughout the story.
Taylor only had two goals in her life at the start of this book and these were to not get pregnant and leave Pittman, Kentucky one day. She fulfills one of these by leaving the only home she has ever known and drives west with little money and no real plan on what she is going to do. Taylor is determined to avoid being tied down. She says, “I knew the scenery of Greenup Road, which we called Steam-It-Up-Road, and I knew what a pecker looked like, and none of these sights had so far inspired me to get hogtied to a future as a tobacco farmer's wife" (3). She is filled with ambition and drive. Taylor wants more than what Pittman offers. Taylor leaving Kentucky is showin...
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...s her own normal family and does not want to ruin someone else’s especially people she cares about.
Taylor's courage shown throughout this novel and her risk taking attitude make her truly independent, but her relationships that she has formed in her new life, and her maturing and empathy she shows towards them make her truly strong. Taylor truly has a genuine and good heart. I really did enjoy her character despite the confusion in the beginning dealing with her reaction to being thrown a child. She seemed to be to calm about it in the beginning but by the end of Bean Trees I understand her more and I believe she has truly grown into this amazing woman. She is a great mother, an amazing friend, a risk taker filled with compassion for others and her courage completely shines through. Her journey began as being a normal teenager and ended as a loving mother.
Life is constantly changing, like clouds in the sky; always shifting and turning. People never really know which way life will turn next, bringing them fortune or failure. When you look at how things change it is best to compare it to something that you can relate it to. The changeable nature of life can be related to the novel 'The Bean Trees.' This is a book written almost entirely on dealing with changes in the characters lives.
In The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver, protagonist Taylor Greer is not your average teenage girl from Pittman, Kentucky. Taylor refuses to remain in her hometown forever, which only leads to teenage pregnancy and motherhood until death. On a mission to escape Pittman’s stereotypical teenage girl image, she buys a ‘55 Volkswagen and embarks on a journey west. Just when she thinks she is home free, Taylor is left with an abandoned three-year-old American Indian girl. Ironically, Taylor ends up as an unplanned single mother. The two end up living in Tucson, Arizona along with another recently single mother and her son. Had Taylor stayed in Pittman her metamorphose process would have differed greatly from her life in Tucson, Arizona
This book is about a girl name Ellen Foster who is ten years old. Her mother committed suicide by over dosing on her medication. When Ellen tried to go look for help for her mother her father stopped her. He told them that if she looked for helped he would kill them both. After her mother died she was left under her fathers custody. Her father was a drunk. He would physically and mentally abuse her. Ellen was forced to pay bills, go grocery shopping, cook for herself, and do everything else for herself. Ellen couldn't take it any more so she ran away her friends house. Starletta and her parents lived in a small cabin with one small bathroom. One day at school a teacher found a bruise on Ellen's arm. She sends Ellen to live with Julia the school's art teacher. Julia had a husband named Roy. They were both hippies. Julia and Roy cared a lot about Ellen. After Ellen turned 11 years old she was forced to go live with her grandmother. Ellen didn't want to leave Julia and Roy but her grandmother had won custody. Her grandmother was a cruel old lady. Ellen spends the summer with her grandmother. Living with her makes her very unhappy. Since her grandmother owns farmland she forces Ellen to work on the field with her black servants. Ellen meets a black woman named Mavis. Mavis and her become good friends. Mavis would talk about how she knew Ellen's mother and how much Ellen resembled her mother. Her grandmother didn't think the same. She thought that Ellen resembled her father. She also hated that man. Her grandmother would often compare her with her father. Her grandmother would torture her because she wanted revenge from her father. Her grandmother also blames her for the death of her mother. While Ellen was staying with her grandmother her father died. When her father died she didn't feel sad because she had always fantasized about killing her father. Ellen just felt a distant sadness. Ellen cried just a little bit. Her grandmother was furious because Ellen showed some emotions. She told her to never cry again. After that Ellen becomes scarred for a long time. One day her uncle Rudolph bought the flag that had been on Ellen's father's casket. Her grandmother turns him away. Later that day she burned the flag.
Throughout the story, Taylor grows as a person and learns what it means to be part of a family. Kingsolver's choices for point of view, setting, conflict, theme, characterization, and style help support the plot and create an uplifting story with a positive message.
Life physically and mentally tests Taylor when her daughter is thought to have been molested a second time by an unknown assailant when Taylor was not around. Taylor learns of Turtle’s injuries on page 280 in which “The medical examiner said that there was no evidence Turtle had been molested. She was shaken up, and there were finger-shaped bruises on her right shoulder, and that was all”, which slowly sent Taylor in a downward because she finally understood what it meant to be a parent and it suddenly dawned upon her that maybe she could not protect Turtle the way her aunt had asked her to. However, the incident in the park just reaffirmed her strength and vigor, which showed her friends and herself that she was slowly starting to evolve and that she could overcome any difficult task if she set her mind to it. The final Bildungsroman stage occurs on page 374 when Taylor says, “Here’s the big news, Turtle’s my real daughter, I adopted her.” This major change in the story symbolizes her newfound maturity and acceptance of her roles as a mother. She understands that she could have never dreamed of becoming a mother in her other lifetime because she simply was not ready to bring joy to other people’s lives before she met Turtle and the rest of her friends. She was taught how to accept the
Emily Heiderberg never imagined anything bad would happen to her. In the novel, Begotten by W. James Richardson, she will learn to be forgiving and she teaches the people around her the same thing. There are many stories involved and they all started with the tragic incident that happened to Emily when she was at a family outing. An unforseen incident that would change the lives of the Heiderberg family, as well as the whole town of Detroit.
Betty Smith’s novel A Tree Grows In Brooklyn is a tale of poignant family relationships and childhood and also of grim privation. The story revolves around the protagonist of the story, young Francie Nolan. She is an imaginative, endearing 11-year-old girl growing up in 1912, in Brooklyn, New York. The entire story revolves around Francie and the Nolan family, including her brother Neelie, her mother Katie and her father Johnny. An ensemble of high relief characters aids and abets them in their journey through this story of sometimes bleak survival and everlasting hope. As we find out, the struggle for survival is primarily focused against the antagonist of this story, the hard-grinding poverty afflicting Francie, the Nolan’s and Brooklyn itself. The hope in the novel is shown symbolically in the “The “Tree of Heaven””. A symbol used throughout the novel to show hope, perseverance and to highlight other key points.
I do not agree with Emilys deed, but admire her inflexible love. She reminds me to be careful when choosing a beloved. It is important to find someone who suits you. The other protagonist, Sarty, shows strong self-awareness. He is young, but he is able to determine right and wrong.
Taylor had a goal, a reason to achieve it, had many challenges along the way and in the end found her reason to thrive. Had Taylor stayed in town, there is a good chance she would have followed the rest of her peers, getting pregnant ad married without any thought to the world outside. Taylor Greer learned that she could rise above small town culture, be herself and thrive. This can be a lesson to readers and critics that life is a quest, and the most important part of it is our development and to find our place in the
Diane von Furstenberg once stated “I wanted to be an independent woman, a woman who could pay for her bills, a woman who could run her own life.” Independence plays a big role in being able to be successful in life. Taylor, a girl that can be described as “different ,” is a person who is a strong believer in doing things by herself. She moved out when she learned how to drive and never went back. She gains a child and soon settles down in Tucson Arizona, where she starts her own life. In the novel The Bean Trees, by Barbara Kingsolver, there are many obstacles Taylor goes through to set the theme of independence.
“The Pain Tree” written by Olive Senior tells the story of a woman who comes back home after many years and begins to think about her childhood in a new light, which changes much of what she thought she knew of her family and childhood. The story shows the main character, Lorraine, revisiting the memories of her family and the woman who had taken care of her as a child, Larissa. Children mainly focus on the happy memories which may be tied to more important topics that they do not understand until they are older. Most children do not pick up on many of the complicated things happening around them. Lorraine can now see the bigger picture of her relationship with Larissa and how large the divides were between Lorraine’s family and Larissa’s
The Bean Trees is a novel which shows Taylor’s maturation; it is a bildungsroman story. Taylor is a developing or dynamic character. Her moral qualities and outlook undergo a permanent change. When the novel begins, Taylor is an independent-minded young woman embarking on an adventure to a new world. She has no cares or worries. She is confident in her abilities, and is determined to make it through life on her own. As she discovers new things and meets new people, Taylor is exposed to the realities of the world. She learns about the plight of abandoned children and of illegal immigrants. She learns how to give help and how to depend upon the help of others. As she interacts with others, those people are likewise affected by Taylor. The other developing characters are Lou Ann Ruiz, Turtle, and Esperanza. Together they learn the importance of interdependence and find their confidence.
In the short story “Marigolds” by Eugenia Collier, the narrator Lizabeth realizes that she is no longer a child but a grown up woman who renounces her innocence and begins her adulthood by developing a sense of compassion. She learns that the world is more than just the dusty shantytown and a squad of kids she plays with; there are also the complex realities of depression, indifference and poverty. The reason behind this realization is that Lizabeth, at an age of 14, overhears her parents’ conversation about the harsh economic situation that their family is facing. She is filled with anger and detests the unfairness that is given to her family. All these feelings encourage her towards an explosive, malicious act of destruction. She is especially
Whether the views about Taylor Swift are positive or negative, she still has been extremely successful. Not only has she made lots of money because of her hit singles, platinum records and sold out concert tours, but she has also found a unique way to connect with her fans. Taylor Swift is both praised and ridiculed because of her music and the way she perceives certain situations, but the way I see it, there are going to be positive and negative aspects of every form of media. What sets Taylor Swift apart from the rest though, it how handles herself with grace, hard work and determination and I think that is something that everyone should respect and admire.
Ever since I was in eighth grade, I have been obsessed with Taylor Swift. She has been my role model since I was thirteen. When you look at most singers today, they have to be singing about drugs or alcohol, using vulgar language, or performing half-dressed. You never see Taylor Swift doing anything that she would be ashamed of later in life. On the other hand, she has had many relationships that have lasted short time periods. At least, she is not getting married for 72 days or even 24 hours such Kim Kardashian or Britney Spears. This is why I chose to write a research paper on her.