Summary Of Barbara Kingsolver's The Bean Trees

Over the summer, St. Francis High School juniors were required to read Barbara Kingsolver's The Bean Trees. In this novel, the protagonist's name is originally Marietta Greer. She wishes to escape her small town life and did so by getting a job working at a hospital while saving money to get an old Volkswagen bug. Marietta finally leaves five years after her high school's graduation. She changes her name to Taylor Greer when she leaves her hometown of Pittman County, Kentucky. Taylor travels to Oklahoma, where she is unexpectedly given a toddler. When the two arrive at a hotel room, Taylor gives the child a bath. During the bath, she discovers the toddler is a girl who has been abused and sexually molested. Taylor names the toddler Turtle due
Taylor begins to acquire feelings for Estevan and soon falls in love with him. Mattie decides to move Estevan and Esperanza to a different sanctuary with the aid of Taylor. She drives the refugees, accompanied by Turtle, to Oklahoma where she also chooses to officially adopt Turtle. Taylor uses Estevan and Esperanza to impersonate Turtle’s biological parents and sign the release documents; Taylor is finally given Turtle. The duo then drive back to their hometown of Tucson, Arizona, after saying their goodbyes. The changes in the character’s names are significant because it explains each of their stories and who the characters are.
In The Bean Trees, the protagonist's original name is Marietta Greer. Marietta’s nickname is Missy due to her having to call her elders Miss or Mister: “...I stamped my foot and told my own mother not to call me Marietta but Miss Marietta, as I had to call all the people including children in the houses where she worked Miss this or Mister that, so she did from that day forward” (2). When Missy decides to leave her hometown of
Estevan explains that his original name is Indian, "Our true first names are Indian names...You couldn't even pronounce them" (204). The refugees had to change their name once they fled their country, "We chose Spanish names when we moved to the city" (204). The couple had to change their name in order to keep their identity a secret. Esperanza's name means both 'hope' and 'wait'. Esperanza is hoping to have a relationship with Turtle identical to her relationship with her daughter, Ismene, before she was taken away. Estevan's name means ‘crown’. The meaning of his name does not say who he is specifically. The female characters have meaning behind their names’; but the male characters don’t seem to have any definition. Later in the novel, the couple wish to go by Steven and Hope, American names, since they are now veiling in America. Taylor refuses to call her friends by their new covers. She had changed her own name “like a dirty shirt” and didn’t want to help the refugees modify theirs. Taylor believed Estevan and Esperanza’s names were all they had left, “They’re the only thing you came here with that you’ve still got left...keep your own names with your friends” (219). Taylor knew the feeling of when she changed her name. She was running from her past and chose to revise her name. The young woman felt lost and wanted to forget where she originated from. Taylor