Literary Devices Used In Barbara Kingsolver's The Bean Trees

King incorporates a myriad of stylistic devices that shape and develop the theme of the passage in the book. Through the periodic use of rhetorical questions such as,

Because flowers go in cycles of life and death, we can look to them as archetypes. The cycle is really closely related to the circle which is a very prominent archetype in the world today and the past. The other thing I think of when I hear the word flowers is gardens. When I looked for the garden archetype I found that gardens symbolize love and fertility (YourDictionary 2). Flowers and gardens also have many symbols associated with them depending on who you ask.

     The use of symbols sets the tone of the piece. She personifies the rain in, “But the rain/ Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and

Life is constantly changing, like clouds in the sky; always shifting and turning. People never really know which way life will turn next, bringing them fortune or failure. When you look at how things change it is best to compare it to something that you can relate it to. The changeable nature of life can be related to the novel 'The Bean Trees.' This is a book written almost entirely on dealing with changes in the characters lives.

Epiphanies are central to the plots of many novels. In the novel The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingslover, the main character, Taylor Greer, has an epiphany that changes the course of her life. After Turtle is traumatized in the park, Taylor withdraws from her and the rest of the world, believing that no nothing she does truly matters. As Turtle improves, Taylor realizes that her positive actions do make the world a better place. When Turtle begins to talk again, Taylor has an epiphany and realizes that every small compassionate action is important and that even she can help make the world a better place. As a result of her epiphany, Taylor is more willing to help others. The positive results of Taylor’s epiphany are first shown when she decides to fight for custody of

Common literary element in English is symbolism, symbolic meaning attribute to facts. “The Bean Trees” has much of the symbolism found inside the novel, it is biological nature. The author continued using plants and animals. Example, symbiotic relationship between rhizobia and wisteria vines that represented the theme of interdependency between people in a community.

Passage: He told me that the national symbol of the Indian people in Guatemala was the quetzal, a beautiful green bird with a long, long tail. I told him I had seen military macaws at the zoo, and wondered if the quetzal was anything like those. He said no. If you tried to keep this bird in a cage, it died (189)."

The book The Bean Trees, by Barbara Kingsolver, is a coming of age story about a young girl, Taylor, that is thrust into motherhood when a baby is left in her car. Taylor however, is not the only example of a mother in the story. There is Lou Ann and Esperanza, both literal mothers, but only one of them has their child to take care of. There is Mattie, one of the first people that Taylor meet in Tucson, and who becomes almost a surrogate-mother for both her, and also the refugees that she shelters. In all of the both literal and figurative examples of motherhood in the story, none of them really fit into the idea of a traditional family setting. Kingsolver is expressing to the reader that being a successful mother does not rely on whether the family is “normal”, but rather being able to do the best for your children.

“Scotty Richey … killed himself on his sixteenth birthday … nobody could understand about Scotty … But the way I see it is, he just didn’t have anybody. … It was like we were all the animals on Noah’s ark that came in pairs, except of his kind there was only one” (Kingsolver 132-4). In Barbara Kingsolver’s novel The Bean Trees, Taylor mentions to Estevan her classmate Scotty Richey’s suicide. She explains that although her school had a very distinct social hierarchy, people within a class had each other for company. Scotty, however, had nobody. As a result of the extreme isolation he faced, he committed suicide. Today, bullying is a developing issue in the world and exclusion, which Scotty faced, is just one of many forms of bullying. What Scotty experienced in the novel occurs in schools around the world, and the consequences are unimaginable and horrific. In light of the increasingly advanced technology developed in recent years, cyberbullying has become a more common form of bullying among students. Cyberbullying, or bullying that occurs through the internet or media, happens due to the courage that bullies acquire by not having to physically face their victims. The harassment the victims experience lead to mental as well as physical health issues, which often times leads to suicide. In order to prevent such grave repercussions, education systems and parents must teach kids how to behave properly on the

The first social issue that Barbara Kingsolver wants to bring awareness to in The Bean Trees are refugees. Kingsolver sympathizes for the tall hurdles that refugees must overcome. She wants to prove that people who are not from America have the same value as those who are. In order to express this, Kingsolver uses Turtle as a symbol of the refugees as she was also separated from her parents and taken to a foreign land. By the end of the novel, Turtle finds a home within Taylor which is symbolic for Kingsolver's opinion that all refugees deserve a loving, accessible home. Virgie Parson is also a symbol for all Americans who have conservative political ideals and the nation’s haste towards allowing refugees and immigrants into our country. Although Virgie is not portrayed as evil, she is portrayed as having no sympathy for the consequences that alienating these aliens from our country will have and not thinking about the moral implications. By providing a happy ending for almost all the character, Kingsolver demonstrates how Refugees and American can both live peacefully as one.

In the famous poem The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus, America is deemed a land of “world wide welcome” for those who seek a new place to call home. The Statue of Liberty is established early on in the piece as a symbol of freedom and protection, a statue symbolic of the spirit of America. In the piece, Lazarus refers to immigrants as the “poor, huddled masses” to whom the United States offers a pair of open “golden doors.” However, many immigrants today feel far removed from the land of freedom referenced in The New Colossus. The promise of a blue sky with endless possibilities is far from reality for the Americans that the poem calls the huddled masses. It is clear that America’s promise of freedom and opportunity, characterized by the

Barbara Kingsolver uses irony and ____ in order to show differences in the roles of parents. Missy leaves her hometown and stops in a town to eat food. While there, a woman tries to give her a baby.

Author use many symbolism in the book The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver. She uses symbolism because it makes it easier for readers to understand the deeper meaning or feeling of the character or the events that are happening. For example, author uses the symbolism of bean trees as transformation and Ismene as the abandoned children to show the deeper meaning of them.

“You have a face only a mother could love” Although a harsh insult this is for most mothers a very true statement. A mother’s love is something that you will probably not experience until you have your very own children. Motherhood can be a very sentimental topic in literature, especially when there is conflict with a child and their mother figure. In the book The Bean Trees there are several mother figures that each express their love for their child, even going great lengths for them. Throughout the many great themes of The Bean Trees this one by far sticks out the most because the book is mainly about a mother taking care of her child, that isn’t even hers, making many sacrifices to give her the best life possible. The main character,

To set the mood in this piece, King describes where he is writing his work and calls it his “far-seeing place,”(103). He says that he is writing this chapter at his desk down in his well lit basement in the winter, and this place is his sanctum away from the stresses of life. By writing about his current setting in his sanctuary, King showed that he was just like any one of us. King reads books as a release from life’s frustrations.