Symbolism In The Bean Trees And Mirror Image

Thought out a persons ever changing life, the one thing that is always consistent is their name. However, sometimes a persons identity will change so much that their own name seems foreign when speaking it out loud. This creates the need for a new name to match a new identity. Kingsolvers The Bean Trees and Lena Coakley’s Mirror Image both apply characterization, conflict, and symbolism to show how identity changes with names and labels.
To began with, Symbolism is literary element used often in The Bean Trees and Mirror Image. In Kingsolvers book, symbolism is used in the very title The Bean Trees. Turtle’s first word is bean which she gets from seeing a wisteria plant that has gone into seed form and produced bean like pods. Later the author emphasizes the symbolism by having Turtle read about how the plant thrives in bad conditions. Kingsolver relates this to various characters in the book, particularly Taylor, Turtle’s adopted mother. In addition to that, the birds in the throughout the story are also a nature based form of symbolism used widely in the book. As Taylor’s life changes so do the sounds the birds make; each of these bird sounds representing different emotions like comfort when the mother quail and her chicks are walking in

In The Bean Tree’s, Taylor’s character grows and changes quite frequently throughout the book. When Taylor goes off on her own she becomes even more worldly and cultured. Not that she was ever naive, but experiencing and hearing things like Estevan and his wife's story then Turtle’s prowler encounter opens her up to the real corruption in the world which gives her character a strong desire to make the world better and help those who are mistreated. She also becomes more independent and strong willed from these experiences which is apparent from her name changing decisions. For, it is a very private decision and yours alone to