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Mental health in literature
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Turtle In The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver, three characters in particular undergo a catharsis, each in their own way: Esperanza, Turtle, and Taylor. This paper will focus on Turtle showing the suffering and difficulties,she has undergone and how through a catharsis, this suffering was ameliorated. Turtle is different from the characters in the story because she is in her very early years of development and has already experienced so much suffering and has gone through so much so early on in her youth. The nature of Taylor’s suffering begins with her parents dying before her eyes, and having to see Newt Hardbine’s father blown up by a tire,the way she grew up and saw everyone around her be unsuccesful was very discouraging, …show more content…
These events affect Taylor’s life deeply,her future is affected by these events because of the way she views herself and other people.A character who helped Taylor through her suffering is Lou Ann a woman who settled in Tucson.Her husband, Angel, has just walked out on her when the story begins and she takes Taylor and Turtle in with her. She worries about the terrible accidents and horror the child has been through, but through the whole story she is always there for Taylor and Turtle. Another character that helps Taylor through her suffering is Mattie, it is also quite ironic that she is the owner of Jesus Is Lord Used Tires. She is wise and kind. She is a mother figure for Taylor. A scene that exemplifies her catharsis is when Turtle reenacted the burial of her mother, Esperanza is relieved by the ceremony of giving up Turtle. Esperanza never got a chance to say goodbye to her daughter, Ismene, so she gets closure in a formal goodbye scene with a girl who looks like her own child and who she loves like her own child. It is also a comforting illusion that she has left her own daughter in good hands with Taylor, a big relief because she does not know who cares for Ismene. The goodbye is a catharsis, a renewal. Taylor
Abandonment plays a major role in Barbara Kingsolver's novel. It links all the characters together. Once one abandons, or is abandoned, they find someone else. They all help each other grow and become stronger. Even with something as horrible and hurtful as abandonment, hope can be found. Taylor explains it perfectly to Turtle when she talks about bean trees, "'There's a whole invisible system for helping out the plant that you'd never guess was there.' I loved this idea. 'It's just the same as with people. The way Edna has Virgie, and Virgie has Edna, and Sandi has Kid Central Station, and everyone has Mattie" (227-228). Everyone is linked together and each person has someone to help. This whole cycle is caused by abandonment. The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver shows that can be hope and love found in any situation, even in abandonment.
Helena Maria Veramontes writes her short story “The Moths” from the first person point of view, placing her fourteen year old protagonist female character as a guide through the process of spiritual re-birth. The girl begins the story with a description of the debt she owes her Abuelita—the only adult who has treated her with kindness and respect. She describes her Apa (Father) and Ama (Mother), along with two sisters as if they live in the same household, yet are born from two different worlds. Her father is abusive, her mother chooses to stay in the background and her sisters evoke a kind of femininity that she does not possess. The girl is angry at her masculine differences and strikes out at her sisters physically. Apa tries to make his daughter conform to his strict religious beliefs, which she refuses to do and her defiance evokes abuse. The girl’s Abuelita is dying and she immerses herself in caring for her, partly to repay a debt and partly out of the deep love she has for her. As her grandmother lay dying, she begins the process of letting go. The moth helps to portray a sense of spirituality, re-birth and becomes, finally, an incarnation of the grandmother. The theme of the story is spiritual growth is born from human suffering.
Lou Ann feels obligated to stay with Angel. When Taylor asks if Lou Ann would move back in with Angel if he wanted things to go back to the way they were, she responded “Well, what else could I do? He’s my husband, isn’t he?” (157) Lou Ann doesn’t believe that she could live without Angel because she was raised believing that she should depend on her husband for support. Teen mothers had to drop out of school to care for their child. At Taylor’s old high school, “girls were dropping by the wayside like seeds off a poppyseed bun . . . there were maybe two boys to every one of us” (4) Girls had to give up their education to care for their child while boys could remain in school. This shows inequality because even if a boy was the father of that child, he could still receive an education while the mother cannot. When comforting Estevan after Esperanza tries to kill herself, Taylor feels that she is being a stereotypical housewife. She unintentionally fell back onto old traditions where the woman cooks for the man, saying “From my earliest memory, times of crisis seemed to end up with women in the kitchen preparing food for the men.” (177) This stereotype suggests that a woman’s place is in the home while the men are the ones supporting the
Betty Smith’s A Tree Grows in Brooklyn presents the problems of a young girl coming of age, a time when she is faced with new challenges and must overcome obstacles. Throughout the book the protagonist, Francie Nolan discovers herself maturing as she struggles with loneliness, the loss of innocence and a life of poverty in a Brooklyn slum. This theme is evident in (1.) her love for books which she uses as companionship, (2.) her outlook on the world as she matures and finally, (3.) her realization that in order to succeed in life she must obtain an education and work hard to do it.
pity in the reader by reflecting on the traumatic childhood of her father, and establishes a cause
Taylor is young girl who leaves her home state Kentucky and ends up living in Arizona with a woman Lou Ann, but alongside her travels, she was given an Indian child she named Turtle. Lou Ann has a child of her own and together the two women learn and adjust their way of living, excluding male figures. She makes the girls fend for themselves and build strength confidence within them throughout the proceedings of the book. For instance, when Taylor first arrives in Tucson with Turtle she is clueless and helpless because she knows no one. However, during her journey she formed a family including various women: Lou Ann, Mattie, Esperanza, Edna, and Virgie. They all aid or support each other with whatever they do. Virgie and Edna take care of the children for Lou Ann and Taylor when they go to work and Mattie gave Taylor a job when she was in dire need. Even though Kingsolver is trying to show how the women are independently strong, she still demonstrates how defenseless they can be and how the women have no control over it. This feeling is shown in this excerpt when Taylor says, “How can I just be upset about Turtle, about a grown man hurting a baby, when the whole way of the world is to pick on people that can’t fight back?” (Kingsolver 229) Through this Kingsolver is trying to convey that women in the world can be helpless when compared to male figures because some men wrongfully hurt women. She goes on to explain how they are not taught how to respectfully treat a woman. The 21st century world has a peculiar way of enforcing standards on the genders, and in today’s society those standards are definitely not the same for each other and Kingsolver shows this through her
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.
First of all, Isabel learns she can always get through tough times in her life even when she loses the people she loves the most. Isabel's old owner, Ms. Mary Finch, was very kind to Isabel and her family. When she dies, her only living relative sells Isabel and her sister Ruth to terrible owners. Another loved one that Isabel had to say bye to was Ruth because she got sold away. When Ruth gets sold, Isabel yells to her master and says, “she is a baby, and you sold her away from me”. This shows that Isabel really loves her baby sister. If Ruth’s sister had not been sold, she would have never met lady Seymour, who made her life better.
“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
Kingsolver develops the story of a strong young woman, named Taylor Greer, who is determined to establish her own individuality. The character learns that she must balance this individualism with a commitment to her community of friends, and in doing this, her life is immeasurably enriched. Many books speak of family, community, and individuality. I believe, however, that the idea that Barbara Kingsolver establishes in her book, The Bean Trees, of a strong sense of individualism, consciously balanced with a keen understanding of community as extended family, is a relatively new idea to the genre of the American novel.
The long journey on planet earth known as life has it ups and downs, growing up as a young individual in today’s world is an obvious rollercoaster. The characters of Phoebe and Theo, are two young girls who endured completely different lives in the books The Hollow Tree, and Awake and Dreaming although they did encounter some similarities throughout their stories. The two children encountered similar family complications, utilised similar coping mechanisms to escape reality, and both became more assertive over their lifespans in the novels. These two novels offer young females readers a logical view on how tough life can get, and how the readers can overcome similar complications they have in their personal lives, while doing all this generating
Taylor, Turtle, Lou Ann, and Esperanza all develop because of their relationship with and to others. An iron is sharpened when it rubs against another piece of iron. Similarly, it is through contact and relationships that character is developed. The characters discover that they need each other to survive, just like the symbiotic relationship between the wisteria and the rhizobia. Taylor learns to depend upon the help of her friends. Turtle overcomes her emotional shock through Taylor’s love and care. Lou Ann finds her self-confidence through Taylor’s encouragement. Esperanza finds hope through her love for Turtle. All the characters learn how to be like the people in heaven. They are “well-fed” because they help and serve each other. The interaction among the characters provides nourishment and life. They develop into better people through this interaction.
Marietta was raised in a small town in Kentucky. When she became an adult, she decided she needed a change. She wanted a different name and a different place to call home. She got in her Volkswagon, started driving, and on this journey she changed her name to Taylor. A stranger gave her a three year old Indian child to take care of, who she names Turtle. The two finally settle down in Tucson, where they live with a single mom who is also from a small town in Kentucky. Taylor works for a woman who hides political refugees in her home, and Taylor becomes good friends with two of them. These two refugees act as Turtle's parents and sign over custody to Taylor, so that Turtle could become her daughter legally. Taylor was very unsure about whether or not she would be a good mom, but in the end she realizes that Turtle belongs with her, and that Tucson is home.
A flowering garden in the spring crafts conceptions of fertility, beauty, and bliss. Certain people are similar to plants: some are functional, others radiate beauty, while the worst are those that kill. Not all plants are welcome such as the purple flowers from the Judas tree that should be kept at bay from the hearts of the tender because of their morbid connotation. The symbolic flowers represent death or betray in literature, as is the example of the character Engino in “Flowering Judas”. Laura in “Flowering Judas” by Anne Kathrine Porter is the seemingly sweet character, but on a deeper analysis, the true intentions of this dynamic character are exposed. Porter conceived the ideas in “Flowering Judas” from her time in Mexico during the
tragedies that befell her. She is an example of a melancholic character that is not able to let go of her loss and therefore lets it t...