Analysis Of The Bean Trees

In the poem Wisteria Vines, the speaker uses the motif of beauty springing from ugliness from The Bean Trees to communicate the theme of the importance of family and community, emphasizing how family, regardless of how atypical it may be, is necessary to "bloom" into something beautiful. This concept is stressed in the final stanza of the poem, when the speaker states, “The rhizobia are not actually a part of the plant, but they always live with the legumes: a kind of underground railroad moving secretly up and down the roots.” The rhizobia, a form of bacteria, are intended to be symbolic of the unconventional family assembled in The Bean Trees; Mattie, Taylor, Lou Ann, Estevan, Esperanza, and the rest of the group, lacking any relation by blood, all develop …show more content…
The speaker proceeds to discuss Turtle’s first word, bean, which elicits images of new life and growth, something which would not have been possible without the care of characters such as Taylor, Lou Ann, and Mattie. In the second stanza, Mattie’s garden growing alongside is provided as another example of how beauty can stem from the ugly, being described as a “wild wonderland of flowers and vegetables and auto parts.” The speaker follows by describing the experience of Estevan and Esperanza, a married couple of undocumented immigrants seeking escape from repression in Guatemala. Estevan’s experience of witnessing interrogation and torture from the Guatemalan police, where “They disconnect the receiver wire and tape the two ends to your body, to sensitive parts,” and Esperanza’s attempt at suicide represent their dark origins. As Esperanza begins “thawing” and as she and Estevan find sanctuary in Oklahoma, it symbolizes their