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The Bean Trees Character Analysis

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In The Bean Trees, by Barbara Kingsolver, there are many characters that come from different backgrounds and have different personalities. Turtle is a three year old, Native American child who is picked up in Cherokee Nation, OK and moves to Tucson, AZ, where she develops an obsession with plants. Taylor is a young woman originally from Kentucky who moves to Tucson to pursue a different life. On her way, she picks up Turtle and later adopts her. Esperanza, a Guatemalan immigrant, is quiet and shy, but befriends Taylor and Turtle on her way to safety in the United States. Even though these characters have vastly different backgrounds, they all have one thing in common, their connection to plants.
Turtle is often associated with plants and vegetables. …show more content…

Turtle’s vegetable-soup song mentions the people she accepts and cares for in her life and who she has a strong connection with. Esperanza, a Guatemalan immigrant builds a strong bond with Turtle as they spend quite a bit of time together on their road trip to Oklahoma with Taylor and Estevan. Because of the strong bond that they have built, Esperanza is mentioned as an ingredient in Turtle’s vegetable-soup. Although Esperanza has a positive connotation with plants and vegetables late in this novel, they were earlier used to describe her rough past in Guatemala and difficult time adjusting to her new life living as an immigrant in the United States. Earlier on in this novel, Estevan explains to Taylor that when he and Esperanza lived in Guatemala, “police would come and set their houses and fields on fire and make them move again” (195) in order to show the common people their superiority. During Taylor and Turtle’s first time meeting Esperanza and Estevan, Esperanza is reminded of her lost daughter Ismene by Turtle and “looked blanched, like a boiled vegetable” (93). Esperanza shows that plants and vegetables can have a positive and negative connection to people as she, present day, is positively compared to a vegetable, but her past has a negative connection to plants and

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Taylor overheard what she thought was Esperanza calling Turtle the name Ismene in the backseat one day, the same day she saw in the rearview mirror how close a bond the two of them were building. Another moment is during the boat ride Estavon and Taylor had while Esperanza waited by the shore with Turtle, Taylor could see them both playing and laughing together like a mother and child. Their closeness shows how much love and care Esperanza does have for Turtle, proving why she wasn’t acting.

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