The novel “The Bean Trees” was published first in 1988. It was the first book of Barbara Kingsolver. The main character of the novel “The Bean Trees” written by Barbara Kingsolver is Taylor Greer. She is a strong woman who is not afraid of different challenges in her life way for a better life. She is ready to take any risk to protect herself and to defend the child from legal authorities. The novel tells the story of a young woman who is full of energy to fulfill her plan, though she does not have any. She acts spontaneously and reaches the destination point. The novel begins with Taylor’s departure from her native town, then she meets a woman who gives her a child; after that Taylor takes care of the child. On her way, this young woman meets different people that have different life stories and various obstacles. She finds her way out of trouble due to the help of strange people.
Taylor Greer is an inhabitant of a small town in Kentucky, but she makes her mind to leave it and search for a better life. She managed to escape out of this town where she had no brilliant perspectives for the future. The whole image of the main character is so feminine and at the same time so strong and full of courage. She is not afraid of work; Taylor takes any job that can help her achieve her goals, she works in the hospital in her native town and tries to collect some money in order to escape this place. Then she buys a car and starts on a journey to see life and to find something suitable for her. She has no specific plan of action and no particular route. Eventually, she becomes an unmarried mother when a Cherokee woman puts a child in the seat of Taylor’s car. The day when Taylor got an abandoned baby changed her planless future.
Taylor did not leave the child and did not give it to the authorities. Then she met Lou Ann who was abandoned by her husband, “She expected that a divorce would just develop, like a pregnancy – that eventually they would reach some kind of agreement without having to discuss it” (Kingsolver 34), some years earlier Taylor was able to avoid pregnancy in order not to destroy her future life and also “barefoot and pregnant was not my style” (Kingsolver 4) as her mother told her when she was a schoolgirl. Nevertheless, Taylor got a baby after a Cherokee woman abandoned it, and she did not refuse to take care of it. She gave the infant the name of Turtle, “I called it Turtle, on account of her grip” (Kingsolver 48), and found out that the child was sexually abused. Taylor did everything she could to take care of Turtle, she even asked a couple of illegal aliens to pretend to be the biological parents of the child.
The author describes Taylor as a romantic girl who loves fishing and observing nature around, “small leaves rotting into the cool mud and watch the Jesus bugs walk on the water, their four little feet making dents in the surface but never falling through” (Kingsolver 3). Strong, energetic, and courageous on the one hand, the image of Taylor possesses all features of femininity and helps to create the idea of motherhood in the novel. A young woman, who did not even think about being a mother, becomes the best mother for the abandoned girl.
Thus we can make a conclusion that Taylor, the main character of the novel, was described as a young woman without certain plans for the future, she only wanted to escape the small-town life. On her way to the West, she becomes the only hope for the abandoned child. Taylor is strong and fragile at the same time, but she makes every effort to live better. Her planless future becomes more and more delineated.
References
Kingsolver, Barbara. The Bean Trees. New York: HarperTorch, 2001.