The Bean Trees (1988)
Written by Barbara Kingsolver
Who has also written The Poisonwood Bible and Pigs in Heaven (sequel)
Key Characters
Taylor (Marietta “Missy”) Greer
Turtle
Lou-Ann Ruiz
Mattie
Estevan
Esperenza
Introduction
Taylor Greer is a clear-eyed and spirited girl who grew up in rural Kentucky with two goals: to avoid
pregnancy and to get away. She succeeds on both counts, buying a ’55 Volkswagon and heading west.
Taylor ends up meeting the human condition head-on and her journey is at the heart of this memorable
novel about love and friendship, abandonment and belonging, and the discovery of surprising resources
in apparently empty places.
Excerpt from back cover of the novel.
I have been afraid of putting air in a tire ever since I saw a tractor tire blow up and
throw Newt Hardbine’s father over the top of the Standard Oil sign. I’m not lying.
He got stuck up there. About nineteen people congregated during the time it took for
Norman Strick to walk up to the Courthouse and blow the whistle for the volunteer
fire department. They eventually did come with the ladder and haul him down, and
he wasn’t dead but lost his hearing and in many other ways was never the same
afterward. They said he overfilled the tire. (p1)
Awards
National Bestseller
Reviews
Publishers’ Weekly Review from http://www.amazon.com
Feisty Marietta Greer changes her name to "Taylor" when her car runs out of gas in Taylorville, Ill.
By the time she reaches Oklahoma, this strong-willed young Kentucky native with a quick tongue
and an open mind is catapulted into a surprising new life. Taylor leaves home in a beat-up '55
Volkswagen bug, on her way to nowhere in particular, savoring her freedom. But when a forlorn
Cherokee woman drops a baby in Taylor's passenger seat and asks her to take it, she does. A first
novel, The Bean Trees is an overwhelming delight, as random and unexpected as real life. The
unmistakable voice of its irresistible heroine is whimsical, yet deeply insightful. Taylor playfully
names her little foundling "Turtle," because she clings with an unrelenting, reptilian grip; at the same
time, Taylor aches at the thought of the silent, staring child's past suffering. With Turtle in tow,
Taylor lands in Tucson, Ariz., with two flat tires and decides to stay. The desert climate, landscape
and vegetation are completely foreign to Taylor, and in learning to love Arizona, she also comes face
to face with its rattlesnakes and tarantulas. Similarly, Taylor finds that motherhood, responsibility
and independence are thorny, if welcome, gifts. This funny, inspiring book is a marvelous
affirmation of risk-taking, commitment and everyday miracles. 
Allusions, References and Noteable Notes
Feminist literary theory is a complex, dynamic area of study that draws from a wide range of critical
theories, including psychoanalysis, Marxism, cultural materialism, anthropology, and structuralism.
If you want to read a text from a generalist feminist perspective, you need to
1. Scan the text for:
Traditional female stereotyping. See if the woman in the text you read is described as an angel,
mad, temptress and witch, false and cheat, etc.
General accusations about women. Try to find if the text accuses women of sentimentality,
irrationality, conspiracy, passivity, etc.
Abuses and derision. See if the text belittles women’s achievement, pokes fun on them and hurls
abuses.
Deliberate omission of women altogether from a narrative where they should be.
2. Once you fall upon the requested stereotypes, generalizations or omissions inserted implicitly or
explicitly in the narrative, you have next to read them against the grain of a masculine dominated culture
that determines both reading and writing. This is to say, if you are a male reader, you should read against
yourself and against your impulses. If you are a female reader, you should be able to see the male biases
in the narrative so that you can expose their falsity.
3. Look for the language used in the text. Observe whether the text uses traditional and conventional
language patterns associated with the male order, or whether language is used unconventionally, and
thus associated with the female order. Marks of unconventionality include loss or multiplicity of voices
in a narrative, parody, fluidity of expression, bricolage, repetition, exaggeration, whimsy, multiple
viewpoint and jouissances
4. While reading bear in mind the two Lacanian orders: the symbolic and the imaginary. The symbolic
implies the detachment of the narrative and the narrator from the mother’s body under the fear of
symbolic castration by the patriarch. The imaginary order suggests a narrative or a narrator completely
fused with the body of the mother, with no exhibition of any signs of fear from the patriarch.
http://www.glbtq.com/literature/feminist_lit_theory.html
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Academy/4573/Lectures/feminism.html
Lacanian Orders
Three orders of the structure of the subject
The Real
The Imaginary Order
The Symbolic Order
self = Ø
identity = Ø
absence, loss, lack = Ø
Other = Ø
self = Other
self = identification with ideal I
ideal-I = ideal ego = own image = Other
symbolic order = { signs, symbols,
significations, representations, images }
(2) Matriarchal state of 'nature'.
(1a) Construction of self as subject.
(1b) Illusion of coherent self identity.
(1c) Finding the self reflected back by an other
with whom it identifies ~
Construction of self upon the image of Other
(ideal I) ~
Identification with Other ~
Self is Other.
(3) Always "in its place".
(2) Patriarchal order of culture.
(1a) No self/exterier boundaries.
(1b) No identity center.
(1c) No absence, loss, lack. Body begins to
fragment into erogenous zones (mouth, anus,
penis, vagina + mother's breast, voice, gaze).
(1a) Self speaks.
(1b) Individuality surrendered to constraints of
language conventions.
(1c) Self becomes more fluid+ambigious sfr
rather than fixed entity sfd.
(3) The symbolic = substitute for what is
missing from its place.
Self is reduced into empty sfr ("I") within the
field of Other (Other = lang & culture).
(3) Discourse of everyday life.
Unconscious decenteres the subject.
Subject misrecognises (méconnait) the nature
of the symbolic => illusion.
méconnaissance = seeing ideal-I where there is
https://www.msu.edu/~harrow/ucad/LACANIAN-ORDERS.htm
a fragmented body.
Discussion Questions
Text as Story
 Idea of making something out of nothing
 What makes family?
 Plant imagery, garden motif
 Esperenza’s loss – depression v. sadness
 Identity – becoming what we’re told we are
 Journey -- how does changing location help motivate change? In what ways is it superfluous to
change?
Text as Technique
 Switching point of view between Taylor-focused and Lou-Ann-focused – purpose?
 Focus on names – meaning, changes etc.
 How do the negative connotations associated with Feminism play into the perpetuation of gender
inequality? In what ways has Kingsolver written Feminist literature with Bean Trees? How does the
Feminist perspective enhance our interpretation of the novel?
 Words. Taylor vernacular – fascination with Estevan’s language – role of words/language?
Key Quotes/Selections
Quote
Scene
Significance/Relevance