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Media from the 1950s through the 1980s suggests that the normal family consists of a

father, mother, and small number of children. What that doesn’t take into consideration are the

hundreds of thousands of different types of family. In the United States, it is estimated that 50%

of all marriages end in divorce, and thousands of children are adopted each year. However,

recent television, movies, and books suggest that families come in all shapes and sizes: single

parents, adoptive families, and most importantly, those not technically related who help support

and help the family. In her contemporary novel The Bean Trees, writer Barbara Kingsolver

debunks the meaning of family through both atypical situations and figures.

Beginning The Bean Trees, main character Taylor Greer buys a car to leave her

hometown and single mother Alice Greer in rural Kentucky, and move out west; she vows that

the name of the town she makes it to as she runs out of gas will be her new name, and thus

becomes Taylor. Stopping in Oklahoma, Taylor is confronted with taking care of a three-year-

old Native American girl she names Turtle after a woman claiming to be the child’s aunt leaves

the child in Taylor’s car. Eventually, Taylor ends up in Arizona where her tires blow and ends up

working with Mattie, a caring, tough, motherly woman in a tire shop named Jesus Is Lord Used

Tires. There she meets Lou Ann, another single mother, and they form a family. After meeting

two Esperanza and Estevan, two Guatemalan refugees and settling into her new life, Taylor

realizes she must legally adopt Turtle to keep the state from taking her away. When she realizes

finding Turtle’s true relatives is hopeless, she figures a plan with the help of Estevan and

Esperanza. They will travel to Oklahoma with Turtle and pretend to be her birth parents to allow

Taylor to adopt her. After the plan plays out successfully, Taylor becomes Turtle’s official

mother, and they return home to Arizona.

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Taylor’s mother Alice is a shining example of how a single mother can give her child

everything a traditional household could give. Taylor remembers when she was a child, “I would

go pond fishing. . . and bring home the boniest mess of bluegills . . . and the way Mama would

carry on you would think I’d caught the famous big lunker in Shep’s Lake” (Kingsolver 2).

Although what Taylor brings home isn’t very impressive, her mother always encourages and

praises her regardless of the accomplishment, just as any parents would. She continues, “No

matter what I did, whatever I came home with, she acted like it was the moon I had just hung up

in the sky and plugged in all the stars” (Kingsolver 10). True mother-daughter love is

unconditional, and Alice shows this through her contentedness of whatever Taylor does. Later, a

teacher of Taylor’s asks the class if anyone is interested in a job at the hospital. Taylor worries

that there are better kids in the class that would get the job over her, but her mother says, “… a

person isn’t nothing more than a scarecrow. You, me, Earl Wickentot, the President of the

United States, and even God Almighty, as far as I can see. The only difference between one that

stands up good and the one that blows over is what kind of stick they’re stuck up there on”

(Kingsolver 5). Her mother doesn’t think that Taylor has any less of a chance of getting the job

than any of the richer or smarter kids in the class. The conversation continues, “[Taylor] said,

‘I’ll tell him. If he hasn’t already given it to a Candy Striper.’ Mama smiled and said, ‘Even if’”

(Kingsolver 6). Because of her mother’s belief in Taylor, she talks to her professor and lands the

job. One night at the hospital she must take care of a patient after a terrible accident which killed

the patient’s husband. Taylor is traumatized, and when she gets home needs her mother,

“[Mama] gave me the biggest hug and said, ‘Missy, I have never seen the likes of you.’ We

didn’t talk too much more about it but I felt better with her there” (Kingsolver 10). Taylor’s
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mother comforts her in a time of need, not with words but with a motherly presence and physical

contact, because a mom is a mom, regardless of who else is, or is not, in the picture.

After graduating from high school, Taylor buys a car and plans to drive it away and move

out of Kentucky. Taylor remembers, “The day I brought [the car] home, she knew I was going to

get away. She took me to one side and said, “Well, if you’re going to have you an old car you’re

going to know how to drive an old car” (Kingsolver 11). Although her mother realizes she will

be losing her daughter, she decides right off that she will teach Taylor how to drive the car. She

teaches Taylor to be self sufficient and gives her freedom and opportunity away from Kentucky.

Alice makes Taylor practice everything about maintaining the car, including replacing a flat tire,

“[Mama] stood in the road with her arms crossed and watched while I took off all four tires and

put them back on. ‘That’s good, Missy’ she said. ‘You’ll drive away from here yet” (Kingsolver

11). Kingsolver shows that all parents protect their children the best they can; Alice does so by

teaching Taylor everything she can about the car, so she will be as safe as possible. Taylor leaves

home soon afterwards and heads east. She runs out of gas in the town of “Taylor” and adopts the

name, her mother offers her freedom by supporting the decision, “[Mama] said I was smarter

than anything to think of Taylor, that it fit me like a pair of washed jeans. She said she’d always

had second thoughts about Marietta” (Kingsolver 85). Through supporting Taylor’s decisions,

Alice makes it easier for Taylor to go where she needs to go to rise to her own freedom and to

support herself.

Taylor drives out west; she sleeps in her car and eats as little as possible to scrape by on

the money she’s saved up. In Oklahoma she stops at a diner; when she returns to her car, a

Cherokee woman approaches her with a child. She explains that she is afraid for the girl’s safety

and that the mother is dead. She also says that the child has no birth certificate or papers, and
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gives the girl to Taylor. She is forced to take the child and, at that moment, becomes an adoptive

mother. Although one may suggest that ownership of an unrelated child does not constitute

motherhood, Taylor quickly and unknowingly establishes herself to the position. With a child

now in tow, Taylor must reconsider her plans, “My plan had been to sleep in the car, but

naturally my plans had not taken into account a wet, cold kid” (21). Taylor is protective over the

child, and attempts to keep the new child healthy by finding a motel to stay in for the night.

Through some negotiation, Taylor is able to stay in a room free of charge, cleaning for housing.

She immediately thinks as a mother and washes the child to clean and warm her. Unfortunately,

Taylor discovers that the girl had been both sexually and physically abused, “The Indian child

was a girl. That fact had already burdened her short life with a kind of misery I could not

imagine. I thought I knew about every ugly thing that one person does to another, but I had never

even thought about such things being done to a baby girl” (Kingsolver 23-24). Taylor is horrified

by what the girl, now in her charge, has been put through in her short life, a torture that only a

young girl could endure. Before this, Taylor was considering where she could the girl, but

decides that she has been put through enough, and decides to keep the child, and to try her best

with her.

They leave the motel and continue heading out west; Taylor has named the girl “Turtle”

for her vice-like grip upon anything she can get her hands on, “The child’s hands constantly

caught my fingers and wouldn’t let go” (Kingsolver 23). Turtle uses her hands to grab things as a

way to find comfort, she can make herself closer to people by grabbing them, and Taylor is her

only source of comfort. They reach Arizona and while driving down an off ramp from the

interstate, glass destroys the tires, and Taylor brings the car to get checked out at Jesus Is Lord
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Used Tires. There she meets Mattie, who tells her that her tires are too far gone for repair and

that, to drive, she must buy new ones.

Without the money to buy new tires, Taylor and Turtle are stuck in Arizona, and Taylor

begins looking for work and a place to stay. Eventually, she takes a job at Jesus Is Lord’s and

moves in with Lou Ann and her baby son Dwayne Ray. Mattie takes Taylor in and teaches her

not only to work with tires, but about herself as well. She has a fear of exploding tires, when

Mattie realizes this, she gets Taylor over her fear:

“I followed [Mattie] across the lot. She took a five-gallon jerry can… and filled it a little

better than halfway up with water…. While I wasn’t paying attention she’d thrown the

heavy can at me…. “Knocked the wind out of her, but didn’t kill you, right?’...’That’s

twenty eight pounds of water. Twenty eight pounds of air is about what you put in a tire.

When it hits you, that’s what it’ll be like.’” (Kingsolver 84)

Mattie, like Taylor’s mother, forces her to confront her fears so she can grow from them, and

further support herself. Taylor continues that the tires she is afraid of are tractor tires, Mattie

replies, “’Well that’s another whole can of beans…. If we get a tractor tire in here, I’ll handle it’

(Kingsolver 84). Mattie comforts and protects Taylor as a mother would. Mattie and Taylor grow

closer every day they work together, and Taylor does end up viewing Mattie as a motherly figure

and goes to her for advice later about many things, including Turtle’s adoption situation.

Immediately Taylor and Lou Ann share a connection with one another, both being single

parents and both from Kentucky, “Lou Ann hid her mouth with her hand. ‘What?’ I said.

‘Nothing.’ I could see perfectly well that she was smiling. ‘Come on, what is it?’ ‘It’s been so

long,’ she said. ‘You talk just like me’” (Kingsolver 79). They share an unspoken understanding

of each other, as a family. Lou Ann stays at home with Dwayne Ray and Turtle while Taylor
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works at Jesus Is Lord’s, they truly “…make a new home by creating a kind of family with each

other and their children” (“The Been Trees” 33). Taylor believes that “In many ways it was the

perfect arrangement… [Mattie] was patient and kind and let me bring in Turtle when I needed to.

Lou Ann kept her some days…. I felt a little badly about foisting her off on Lou Ann at all, but

she insisted that Turtle was so little trouble she often forgot she was there” (Kingsolver 81).

Taylor supports her new-found family, while Lou Ann watches over it, a typical family.

In the beginning, Taylor resists the idea that they truly are a family, and lashes out at Lou Ann,

“It’s not like we’re a family, for Christ’s sake. You’ve got your own life to live, and I’ve got

mine. You don’t have to do this stuff for me” (Kingsolver 89). Lou Ann, however, does in fact

view Taylor and Turtle as her family, she eventually says, “’Taylor… I told somebody that you

and Turtle and Dwayne Ray were my family… I guess because we’ve been through hell and high

water together” (Kingsolver 244). While they aren’t of blood or marital relation, the group is a

family because of how they live and what they go through together. Although they live together

and take care of each other, Taylor does not view herself, Lou Ann, Turtle, and Dwayne Ray as a

family; merely a few people living in the same home together. Taylor does come to realize,

however, that they are a family; she comes to understand “…that family is not just something

that you are born into – that is given to you – but it is a collection of people that you make into a

home” (Esdale 40-41). When describing a plant, the bean trees to Turtle, Taylor says, “’There’s a

whole invisible system for helping out the plant that you’d never guess was there.’ I loved this

idea. ‘It’s just the same as with people” (Kingsolver 241). Taylor sees that she doesn’t, and

cannot support both herself and Turtle alone, and she sees that there are people like the rhizobia

that “… are not actually part of the of the plant, they are separate creatures, but they always live

with legumes: a kind of underground railroad moving secretly up and down the roots”
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(Kingsolver 241). Although they aren’t completely apparent, everyone has roots, people that help

them through their lives the best they can, and Lou Ann and Dwayne Ray are part of her and

Turtle’s family.

Lou Ann follows freak accident occurrences, and thus is very protective over Taylor and

the children about just about everything. When Taylor feeds Turtle soup, Lou Ann gives advice,

“Watch out, there’s peas in there A child’s windpipe can be blocked by anything smaller than a

golf ball” (Kingsolver 87). Taylor remembers, “’Lou Ann had once said to me: ‘there’s so many

germs in the world it’s a wonder we’re not all dead already’” (Kingsolver 177). Lou Ann offers

the children protection, although she is slightly neurotic, she keeps them safe through the

absolute best of her abilities, and protecting their children is one of the most important things to

most parents. She also worries to take care of Taylor and when she goes for a swim Lou Ann

states “’…you’re not supposed to go in for an hour after you eat. You’ll drown… [i]t’s

something about the food in your stomach makes you sink’” (Kingsolver 98). Lou Ann strives to

take care of, protect, and give advice to Taylor as much as she can with the knowledge she has,

which is all anyone can ask for.

Taylor, on the other hand, must also give Lou Ann advice in return. Lou Ann constantly

puts herself down, and Taylor frequently must stand up for Lou Ann to her. When Lou Ann

starts complaining about how much prettier, smarter, and better Taylor is than her, Taylor gives

her advice. “’Stop it, would you? Quit making everybody out to be better than you are. I’m just a

plain hillbilly from East Jesus Nowhere with this adopted child everybody keeps on telling me is

dumb as a box of rocks. I’ve got nothing on you girl. I mean it’” (Kingsolver 79). Part of being a

family is comforting and sticking up for one another, which Taylor does frequently because Lou

Ann has such low self esteem. Lou Ann feels overweight for still having the baby weight she
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never lost from having Dwayne Ray. Taylor responds, “’I refuse to believe you’re overweight,

that’s all I’m saying. If you say one more word about being fat, I’m going to stick my fingers in

my ears and sing ‘Blue Bayou’ until you’re done’” (Kingsolver 105). As a sister or a mother,

Taylor comforts Lou Ann, because no one wants to see someone in their family hurting.

mimics Lou Ann when she hears Turtle in the back seat of her car, “There was a thud in the back

seat, and then a sound, halfway between a cough and a squeak. ’Jesus, that was Turtle.’ I said.

‘Lou Ann, that was her, wasn’t it? She made that sound. Is her neck broken?” (Kingsolver 100).

As her mother, Lou Ann, and most parents, Taylor is very concerned about incidents involving

Turtle, overreacting sometimes to normal situations. When Lou Ann hears that her husband, who

she has a separation with, is moving and may stop spending checks to take care of her and

Dwayne Ray, she doesn’t know what to do. Taylor says, “’It probably doesn’t make any

difference what kind of divorce you get, or even if you get one at all. The man is gone, honey. If

he stops sending checks I don’t imagine there’s anything to be done, not if he’s out riding the

range in God’s country. I guess you’ll have to look for a job, sooner or later” (Kingsolver 132).

Taylor advises Lou Ann the best she can, and as comforting as she can, without being unkind to

her. Through advice and comfort, Taylor helps Lou Ann as often and much as she can.

Throughout the novel, Taylor shows care, worry, and protectiveness for Turtle. Lou Ann

buys a book of names trying to discover what Turtle’s true name is, but Taylor becomes upset at

Lou Ann after Lou Ann says she is doing this because Turtle has no personality. “‘Sure she

does,’ I said. ‘She grabs onto things. That’s her personality’” (Kingsolver 86). Taylor is offended

when Lou Ann says this about Turtle because it is insulting her, and Taylor tries her best to stick

up for her daughter. Kingsolver writes, “There was a thud in the back seat, and then a sound,

halfway between and cough and a squeak. ‘Jesus, that was Turtle.’ I said. ‘Lou Ann, that was
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her, wasn’t it? She made that sound. Is her neck broken?” Taylor is worried for Turtle’s safety

because she hears a sound from her daughter that she has never heard before. Lou Ann replies,

“’She’s fine, Taylor. Everybody’s fine. Look.’ She picked up Turtle and showed me that she was

okay. ‘She did a somersault. I think that was a laugh” (100). Taylor is happy beyond belief, not

only that Turtle is okay, but that she has finally made a sound. “Knowing that Turtle’s first

uttered sound was a laugh brought me no end of relief” (Kingsolver 101). After months of

silence, it is a relief to Taylor that she has done alright with raising Turtle, and that Turtle is

happy. Soon afterward, Taylor is planting with Mattie and Turtle, and after showing her different

seeds and beans, Turtle says her first word, “bean.” Taylor responds, “I picked up Turtle and

gave her a hug. ‘That’s right, that’s a bean. And you’re just about the smartest kid alive,’ I told

her, Mattie just smiled” (Kingsolver 102). Just as her mother praised her, Taylor praises Turtle,

and is both proud and happy that her daughter has begun speaking. Taylor takes Turtle to the

doctor for her first check up, and the doctor figures out that Turtle is about twenty-four months

old. After more tests, however, the doctor learns that Turtle is closer to three years old. The

doctor explains, “’Sometimes in an environment of physical or emotional deprivation a child will

simply stop growing, although certain internal maturation does continue” (Kingsolver 129).

Taylor is shocked, and doesn’t know what to do with the information. “I couldn’t really listen….

On the way over I tried to erase the words ‘failure to thrive’ from my mind” (Kingsolver 130).

Taylor is concerned over Turtle’s well-being, although she is, in fact growing now she still

worries about her daughter’s health.

Lou Ann takes Taylor’s advice and gets a job at a local factory, and Turtle continues to

advance in her communication and openness with Taylor. One day, after going into the desert

with Mattie, Lou Ann finds Taylor and explains that Turtle as been attacked. Their blind
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neighbor, Edna had been watching Dwayne Ray and Turtle when a man grabbed Turtle. Edna

realized what had happened and swung her cane around to hit him and she scared him away.

After the incident, “Lou Ann took off a week from Red Hot Mama’s, putting her new promotion

at risk, just to stay home with Turtle” (Kingsolver 177). She cares for Turtle and Taylor the best

she can, not caring about potentially ruining something great in her life. Family looks after one

another, and helps whenever help is needed. Turtle was grabbed harshly, however, and this

worries Taylor much more than the social workers explaining it to her. They would say that “She

was shaken up, and there were finger-shaped bruises on her right shoulder, and that was all” and

Taylor would retaliate, “‘She’s just been scared practically back into the womb is all”

(Kingsolver 176). She is worried for Turtle, because since the accident Turtle has returned to the

catatonic state she was in when she began her journey with Taylor.

Taylor spends a lot of time blaming herself for the accident. Speaking with Lou Ann she

says, “’I’ve just spent about the last eight or nine months trying to convince her that nobody

would hurt her again. Why should she believe me now?” (Kingsolver 177). Taylor is extremely

concerned and worried for Turtle’s well-being and recovery from the traumatic experience; she

blames herself, and believes that there must have been something she could have done. Lou Ann

replies, “You can’t promise a kid that. All you can promise is that you’ll take care of them the

best you can, Lord willing and the creeks don’t rise, and you just hope for the best” (Kingsolver

177). Lou Ann is worried for Taylor, for like Turtle she has become distant, and she gives her

advice to try and help her the best she can. Parents continually think, ‘what if’ in stressful,

traumatic experiences, hoping beyond hope everything will return to normal, and second

guessing their abilities to protect their children. When the investigation of Turtle’s attacker

discovers that Turtle is not Taylor’s true daughter, and that she has no papers to prove she was
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abandoned, Taylor receives a notice that if she does not legally adopt Turtle, she will be taken by

the state. Taylor questions whether she is really the one to give Turtle the best life she can

possibly have. She consults Mattie, who tells her, “You’re asking yourself, Can I give this child

the best possible upbringing. . . . The answer is no, you can’t.” She continues, “But nobody else

can either. . . . That’s why it’s the wrong thing to ask. . . . Do I want to try? Do I think it would

be interesting, maybe even enjoyable in the long run, to share my life with this kid and give her

my best effort. . .’” (Kingsolver 187). After the attack, Taylor questions her ability to protect

Turtle, and her ability to raise her well. She realizes, however, that the fact that she wants to try,

wants to give Turtle the best she can possibly give her puts her above many other ‘real’, legal

parents and decides that she does, in fact, want to attempt to adopt her. She, however, feels

helpless to do so and doesn’t think that there is anything she can do to fight the law. Lou Ann

responds, “Taylor, don’t. Just don’t. You’re acting like it’s a lost cause, and that I’m telling you

to do something stupid. All I’m saying is, there’s got to be some way around them taking her,

and you’re not even trying to think of it” (Kingsolver 184). Lou Ann encourages and advises

Taylor to do everything she can to keep the state from taking Turtle away, from taking part of

their family away.

Mattie tells Taylor that two Indian Guatemalan refugees, Estevan and Esperanza, need to

be transported to a new safe house in Oklahoma. Taylor takes the opportunity to bring them,

because she must also return there to try to find Turtle’s legal guardian. After failing to find any

leads as to the whereabouts of the woman, the group takes a break at the Lake o’ the Cherokees.

Taylor notices Turtle burying her favorite doll in the soil beneath a large tree, concerned, she

confronts her, “’Did you see your mama get buried like that?’ Turtle replies that yes, she did. “I

held her in my arms and we rocked for a long time at the foot of the pine tree” (Kingsolver 221-
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222). Through her own worries, Taylor notices oddities in Turtle, and puts her problems above

her own to comfort her; just as a true parent puts their worries beneath those of their children.

She worries that Turtle has already been through so much in her life, now in including death, and

comforts her the best that she can.

Taylor devises a plan to pass Estevan and Esperanza off as Turtle’s birth parents, and

because they are believed to be from the Cherokee nation they are not questioned as to why she

doesn’t have a birth certificate. The ruse fools those handling Turtle’s adoption, and before

picking up the finial paperwork, Taylor brings Esperanza and Estevan to their new safe house.

Taylor calls her mother for support and advice, and though they have not spoken in

several weeks Alice gives Taylor her own advice, without asking for an apology or anything in

return. Her mother says that although Turtle is not blood-related, that she is in fact like Taylor,

taking after traits in a family, “I don’t think blood’s the only way kids come by things honest.

Not even the main way. It’s what you tell them, Taylor. If a person is bad, say, then it makes

them feel better to tell their kids that they’re even worse. And that’s exactly what they’ll grow up

to be” (Kingsolver 236). Although Taylor is not Turtle’s birth mother, she can influence Taylor’s

upbringing, and according to Alice, influence it more than any blood relation ever would.

Taylor explains the papers now declaring ‘April Turtle Greer’ as her daughter to Turtle.

“I let Turtle see the adoption certificate…. ‘That means you’re my kid,’ I explained, ‘and I’m

your mother, and nobody can say it isn’t so’” (Kingsolver 246). Though Taylor has in fact been

Turtle’s mother for months, after receiving a certificate saying that is so, she feels more

confident and comfortable about the idea. Driving home, “[Turtle] watched the dark highway

and entertained me with her vegetable soup song, except that now there were people mixed in

with the beans and potatoes: Dwayne Ray, Mattie, Esperanza, Lou Ann, and all the rest. And me.
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I was the main ingredient” (Kingsolver 246). Through all of the changes in Turtle’s life, all of

the hardships and friendships, she recognizes her family as the group of people that help,

support, and comfort her, and the people she enjoys spending her time with most. Turtle views

family is not those related to her, but those most important to her.

Throughout The Bean Trees, Kingsolver exposes atypical families. She proves that

atypical families are in fact as functional, if not more, than the typical ones. The novel brings

notice to the friends that support raising a family. The reader comes to understand “…that family

is not just something that you are born into – that is given to you – but it is a collection of people

that you make into a home” (Esdale 40-41). Family is who loves, supports, and protects

someone, rather than who is only related to them.

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Works Cited
“The Bean Trees.” Novels for Students. Eds. Sheryl Ciccarelli and Marie Rose Napierkowski.
Vol. 5. Detroit: Gale, 1999.

DeMarr, Mary Jean. "The Bean Trees." Barbara Kingsolver: A Critical Companion. Westport,
Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1999. 43-67.

Esdale, Logan. “Criticism.” Novels for Students. Eds. Sheryl Ciccarelli and Marie Rose
Napierkowski. Vol. 5. Detroit: Gale, 1999. 38-41.

Kingsolver, Babara. The Bean Trees. New York: HarperCollins, 1988.