In Guatemala City I missed the mountains. My own language is not Spanish, did you know that? When Taylor tells him she didn't, he explains: "We are Mayan people; we speak twenty-two different Mayan languages.
Esperanza and I speak to each other in Spanish because we come from different parts of the highlands" Taylor finds this fascinating. For her, the thought of so many languages accumulating "in a family, in a country like that" adds to her vision of Guatemala as a "storybook place," with "jungles full of long-tailed birds," and "women wearing rainbow-threaded dresses" Yes, the ignorant and mildly racist trend continues.
But don't worry, Estevan soon corrects this romantic vision of the country. Taylor adds, showing us that she's learned a thing or two:. Police everywhere, always.
Whole villages of Indians forced to move again and again. As soon as they planted their crops, Estevan said, the police would come and set their houses and fields on fire and make them move again. The strategy was to wear them down so they'd be too tired or too hungry to fight back.
Although The Bean Trees doesn't devote a lot of attention to Estevan and Esperanza's identities and experience as Mayan people, the novel does draw strong connections between the Guatemalan and American governments' respective treatment of Indigenous peoples.
As characters who are only partially developed, problematic as that may be, Estevan and Esperanza make useful representatives of Central American Indigeneity so that the novel can make these connections clearer.
It may be glossing over some stuff, but hey, if you're more aware of those oppressions than you were when you picked up the book, it at least did something to make you question those stereotypes. At least, that's what Ms. Her "smartest kid alive" comment suggests that she will succeed in raising Turtle to be a self-sufficient woman, just like her mother raised her. Turtle, whose real name Taylor and Lou Ann discover is April, is as "healthy as corn," a metaphor that likens Turtle to a vegetable, which is the only class of words that Turtle seems able — or willing — to say.
However, taking her role as a mother seriously, Taylor thinks that because of the abuse Turtle endured, Turtle should be examined by a doctor. Taylor takes her to Lou Ann's doctor and learns that Turtle is close to three years old, not two as she'd guessed. The doctor points out the many bones that have been broken and healed in Turtle's little body. Because this information is more than Taylor can bear, she stares out the window that the x-rays are propped up against.
Seeing a bird's nest in a thorny cactus, she wonders how the bird ever "made a home in there. Somehow, Turtle made a "home" within herself and survived. Although the doctor tells Taylor that turtle has a condition called "failure to thrive," wherein a physically or emotionally deprived child stops growing, he admits that the condition is reversible.
Taylor knows that turtle is growing physically because she buys her new, larger-sized clothes, but Taylor does not take sole responsibility for turtle's emotional and psychological progress and well-being. Here, the themes of family and community are evident: without the help of her "family," including Lou Ann, Taylor would not be the mother she's learned to become.
She and Lou Ann leave the children with Edna and Virgie Mae whenever they have an emergency or whenever neither one can be at home to care for the children. By introducing the two older women, Kingsolver again emphasizes the community of women needed to raise children. Note the irony in the differences between the two elderly women: Edna is a kind woman who always dresses in red from head to foot. Her sweet nature makes up for Virgie Mae, who is a prejudiced, narrow-minded person.
However, together the women survive by serving as balancing forces for each other. Taylor also meets Esperanza and Estevan, a young married couple from Guatemala City, who are living with Mattie. Taylor remarks that the miracle satisfies her even more than the biblical story about water springing from a rock. The story she refers to takes place in the desert when God enables Moses to draw water from a rock to save the Israelites.
Taylor and Lou Ann, like the Israelites, find themselves in the desert. Their miracle provides them not with the physical sustenance of water, however, but with the spiritual sustenance of beauty.
Lou Ann and Taylor continue to think of men in different ways. In contrast, Lou Ann demonstrates her traditional mindset about men and marriage. In several ways, Taylor grows up in Chapter Nine. Estevan compares these cliques to the Indian caste system, where people of different castes cannot mix Estevan suddenly breaks the silence to tell Taylor about the Guatemalan use of electricity in interrogation Taylor admits that she has had it easier that Estevan because she is American, but she also tells him that Tucson is a foreign country Estevan asks Taylor not to judge Esperanza too harshly until she knows what Esperanza has had Taylor is horrified that Estevan had to choose between saving his daughter or saving the lives of his friends.
Taylor thinks that the four of them look like a family of paper dolls Estevan laughs and says he would have kept Ismene, but Taylor reminds him that he, as When Taylor finally wakes up again, she and Estevan are curled together on the couch. Taylor holds his hand for a moment, then guiltily Chapter The Bean Trees.
Mattie calls with good news of Esperanza, and Taylor sends Estevan home to his wife. Turtle wakes up and Lou Ann comes home in a good Esperanza looks away in pain. Taylor, still intensely unsure of what Chapter Dream Angels.
Lou Ann wonders how a turtle can get pregnant, considering their shells. The last time Mattie and Taylor talked, Mattie said that Estevan and Esperanza would have to be moved to either Oregon or Oklahoma to be safer Chapter Into the Terrible Night. Taylor phones Edna to ask her to watch the kids a bit longer. The sudden cold is shocking and refreshing. Estevan starts to dance with Esperanza and Taylor thinks about how much she loves him and Estevan devilishly agrees that only death and sex are worth making as much noise as the Chapter Night-Blooming Cereus.
Mattie is also worried, as her plans to get Estevan and Esperanza to another sanctuary in a safer state keep falling though.
Yet Mattie still She thinks about how women are usually the ones who must carry their Taylor tells Lou Ann that she is going to drive Estevan and Esperanza to a safe house in Oklahoma, and try to see if she can Taylor pushes that out of her mind, and tells Mattie to worry about Esperanza and Estevan.
She then kisses Estevan , Esperanza, and Turtle goodbye as Taylor starts to cry. Taylor drives out of town, reaching Chapter Guardian Saints.
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