The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver, begins when Taylor (whose real name is Marietta) decides that it's time to leave Pittman, Kentucky, where she lives with her mother, and make something of herself. She buys a 1955 Volkswagen and embarks on a personal journey of self-discovery, leaving everything behind, including her name. When her car runs out of gas in Taylorville, Illinois, she decides that her new name will be Taylor. From that point on, she is known as Taylor Greer. In the middle of Oklahoma, on land owned by the Cherokee Nation, Taylor's car breaks down. Taylor stops to have it repaired and to get something to eat at a restaurant. Her life changes dramatically when, sitting in her car and ready to leave the restaurant and continue …show more content…
Returning home from a picnic in the desert, Taylor has to stop the car quickly because a mother quail and her babies are crossing the road. Kingsolver includes this episode to emphasize the responsibilities of motherhood and how Taylor is beginning to accept them. Taylor feels as proud as any parent when Turtle laughs and smiles for the first time after turning a somersault when the car stops quickly. And later, when Taylor and Turtle are in Mattie's garden planting seeds, Turtle says her first word, "bean." Taylor hugs Turtle and tells her — as her own mother told her — that she is "just about the smartest kid alive”(69). Here, Taylor supports Turtle as her mother supported her while she was growing up in Kentucky. Her "smartest kid alive" comment suggests that she will succeed in raising Turtle to be a self-sufficient woman, just like her mother raised her. However, taking her role as a mother seriously, Taylor thinks that because of the abuse Turtle endured, Turtle should be examined by a doctor. Taylor takes her to Lou Ann's doctor and learns that Turtle is close to three years old, not two as she'd guessed. The doctor points out the many bones that have been broken and healed in Turtle's little body. Because this information is more than Taylor can bear, she stares out the window that the x-rays are propped up against. Seeing a bird's nest in a thorny cactus, she wonders how the bird ever "made a home in …show more content…
Contradicting because Taylor can't console the traumatized Turtle. Because she herself is overwhelmed with guilt. Instead, she helps Virgie Mae free a bird trapped in the house, a symbolic representation of Taylor's wish to free Turtle from her catatonic state. Luckily, Turtle wasn't molested. She has a bruise and was a bit shaken up. Although a social worker tells Taylor that Turtle will most likely speak again, as children are quite resilient, the social worker's encouragement does nothing to relieve Taylor's feelings of despair. She feels that she is an incompetent mother because she wasn't able to protect Turtle. Overwhelmed with the "ugliness"(94) in the world, she is upset about people hurting children, people hurting people who can't fight back, and people not feeling sorry for other people anymore. Her world has changed, and she has difficulty knowing what to do about it. Confused about what would be best for Turtle, Taylor talks to Mattie, who encourages Taylor to look at the situation from a different perspective: to ask herself whether she wants to try to raise Turtle. Taylor and Mattie's conversation emphasizes that mothers can only do their best to keep their children safe; nobody can protect a child from the world. Kingsolver balances the ugliness of the world that Taylor has to endure