In The Bean Trees, author Barbara Kingsolver creates a community of characters who depend upon one another in order to survive personal hardships, unexpected crises, and even everyday challenges within an increasingly complex world. As these characters journey through life, they meet and connect with one another in a profound and often life-saving manner. In the process, they form a community of mutually supportive people-one that functions like a big extended family, however non-traditional it may be. In doing this, Kingsolver not only illustrates the importance of family as an emotional support system in today’s society, but the changing face of the family unit itself-one that is defined more by love than by structure, and one that almost always features strong, independent women at the helm.
Alice Greer, the first strong women introduced in the novel, serves as a role model for the many other women who arrive later in the novel. A single parent, Alice is the head of a non-traditional, yet highly functional family. The Greer family only includes two people: Alice and her daughter, Taylor. Although a single parent who struggles financially, Alice has raised Taylor as a confident young woman who will not be held back by things like the lack of a father or low economic status in their hometown: Pittman, Kentucky. Taylor’s father, Foster Greer, left Alice when he found out that her mother was pregnant, but Alice is nothing but positive about her life with Taylor. In fact, Alice tells Taylor that “trading Foster for [you] was the best deal this side of the Jackson Purchase” (6). As Taylor matures and sees unmarried, pregnant young women all around her, she finds the courage to ask for a job at the Pittman County Hospital lab. However, she does so only after her mother gives her a pep talk: “The way I see it, a person isn’t nothing more than a scarecrow. You, me, the President…The only difference between one that stands up good and one that blows over is what kind of stick they’re stuck up there on” (7). Here, love, support, and mutual admiration define this two-person, non-traditional family. As Taylor recalls: “There were two things about Mama. One is she always expected the best out of me. And the other is that no matter what I did, whatever I came home with, she acted like it was the moon I had just hung up in the sky and plugged in all the stars” (13). Because of this strong mother-daughter relationship, Taylor finally finds the courage to leave Pittman altogether in order to escape unwed motherhood and to become the “best” person she can be.
Ironically, as Taylor drives west through Oklahoma, motherhood is thrust upon her by sheer chance when a Cherokee woman places a quiet, still child in the passenger seat of her car. ” If I wanted a baby I would have stayed in Kentucky,” Taylor informs the woman (24). Torn between not wanting this responsibility and following her inner instincts to stand by this child just as Alice stood by her, Taylor feels an immediate connection with the girl-a Native American child who, as Taylor discovers, has already faced sexual abuse and “a kind of misery I could not imagine” (31). The connection stems from Taylor’s memories of sexually abused girls in Pittman. However, it also stems from something much more profound to Taylor: A small percentage of Cherokee blood that comes from her mother and grandfather. Alice refers to their Cherokee heritage as she and Taylor’s “head rights” or “ace in the hole”: “If we run out of luck we can always go live on the Cherokee Nation,” Taylor’s mother says (17-18). Soon, Taylor finds herself writing her mother about Turtle: “I found my head rights, Mama. They’re coming home with me” (32). Not only does Taylor commit to recreating the same kind of small, yet nurturing family unit that her mother created for her, she realizes that “coming home” means finding her own place in the world with Turtle.
Unlike Taylor’s small childhood family, Taylor’s new family does not stay small for very long. Indeed, as the novel progresses, it expands with every new person she happens to meet. For example, while driving west with Turtle, Taylor experiences two flat tires and stops at Jesus Is Lord Used Tires in Tucson, Arizona. Mattie, the owner of the store and a widow, realizes that Taylor has a thirsty child and no money. While giving Turtle juice in a spill-proof sip cup, Mattie casually mentions that Turtle might become dehydrated without enough to drink in the desert heat: ” ‘It’s so dry out here kids will dehydrate real fast,’ Mattie told me…I wondered how many other things were lurking around waiting to take a child’s life when you weren’t paying attention” (60). Watching and listening to Mattie, Taylor realizes how little she knows about motherhood and that she must find work and a place to stay for Turtle’s sake. Not only does Mattie provide her with both, she teaches Taylor to overcome her childhood fear of exploding tires: “While I wasn’t paying attention, [Mattie threw] a heavy can at me. I caught it, though it came near to bowling me over. ‘Knocked the wind out of you, but it didn’t kill you, right?'” (108). Here, Mattie’s words of encouragement echo those of Alice’s, and it becomes clear that Taylor and Mattie are forming a strong, mother-daughter type of relationship. In the process, Taylor begins to realize that value of trusting others and even relying on them for help. While Taylor is aware of the fact that she and Turtle are in the process of “finding their own way” (64), she also begins to consider Mattie “family”. Mattie, in turn, welcomes Taylor and Turtle into her world-a world that includes a community of people who support one another in ways that Taylor had never imagined.
Taylor’s family continues to expand as she meets yet another strong single woman: Lou Ann Ruiz. While looking for a new place to live with Turtle in Tucson, Taylor responds to an ad that Lou Ann has placed in the paper. An estranged wife and young mother who is also from Kentucky, Lou Ann immediately connects with Taylor:
“Well, my gosh…here you are so skinny and smart and cute and everything, and me and Dwayne Ray, well, we’re just lumping along here trying to get by…who in the world would want to move in here with us?”
“Stop it, would you? Quit making everybody out to be better than you.”
Lou Ann hid her mouth with her hand… “It’s been so long,” she said. “You talk just like me. (101-102)”
Sharing the same house, Taylor, Turtle, Lou Ann, and Dwayne Ray begin to provide a sense of family for each other. Ironically, the women’s friendship is not only based on their shared Kentucky dialect or single parenthood, but also on their differences. For example, as illustrated by the above passage, the self-confidence that Taylor has inherited from her mother offsets Lou Ann’s recurring self-doubt. Ultimately, this enables Lou Ann to detach herself from her abusive, estranged husband and to find the courage to get a job: “Lou Ann loved her job…If Red Hot Mama’s had given out enthusiastic-employee awards, Lou Ann would have needed a trophy case” (204), Taylor says. Indeed, Taylor and Lou Ann help each other with everything from self-confidence to mothering. Ironically, this new, extended family of Taylor’s-which includes Mattie and several other characters– is something that Taylor has always craved:
When I was a child I had a set of paper dolls...Their names were Mom, Dad, Sis, and Junior. I played with those dolls in a desperate, loving way until their paper arms and heads disintegrated. I loved them in spite of the fact that their tight-knit little circle was as far beyond my reach as the football players’ and cheerleaders’ circle would be in later years” (185).
Although Taylor’s growing family” is anything but the traditional paper doll family she once fantasized about, Taylor finally realizes that she never really needed the “ideal” family for happiness. This realization comes during at the end of the novel, when Taylor is driving Turtle back to Tucson after officially adopting her in Oklahoma. Here, Taylor marvels at her happy, talkative child who sings the names of very member of their now very large, extended family in a song about vegetables. “‘Do you remember home?” I asked [Turtle]. ‘…We’ll be there before you know it.’ But it didn’t seem to matter to Turtle …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…Lou Ann and all the rest. And me. I was the main ingredient” (311-312). The above passage not only illustrates the transformation that Turtle has undergone thanks to Taylor and their extended family, but also Taylor’s new sense of purpose as she realizes that she is the main ingredient in Taylor’s life.
With this final scene, Kingsolver reasserts the value of family-however nontraditional it may be-as an essential and even life-saving support system for this diverse group of characters, as well as for society in general. Each from different life experiences and facing different challenges, these characters find each other along their journey through life, and, because of this, are able to find themselves.
