Morality In Barbara Kingsolver's The Bean Trees

The Laws of Morality. The book The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver tackles some large important ideas. One of the most impactful ideas Kingsolver looks at is the idea of a person's moral code being more important than the law. Some examples of when this idea is brought up are Mattie helping refugees from Guatemala and El Salvador, Taylor’s favor for Estevan and Esperanza, and Estevan and Esperanza's favor for Taylor. By looking at these three examples it becomes obvious that throughout the book characters view their moral code as more important than the code of the law. The first given example of morals being more important than the law is Mattie’s take on the refugees from Guatemala and El Salvador. Mattie helps the refugees by on live …show more content…
Taylor’s favor was driving Estevan and Esperanza to a safe house in Oklahoma. Taylor driving Estevan and Esperanza to the Oklahoma safe house shows that Taylor favors morality over law because she, much like Mattie,is breaking the law by aiding someone who came to America illegally evade the authorities. Taylor doing this favor also shows that she is more heavily swayed by morality than law because she cared about Estevan and Esperanza so much that she drove them even with the possibility of legal consequences. Another thing that proves Taylor cares more about morality than law is when Mattie was telling her about the legal repercussions for aiding them and Taylor said, “‘I don’t know why you’re worried about me,’ I told her. ‘Esperanza and Estevan would get a whole lot worse than a prison and a fine’” (Kingsolver 247). Taylor talking about how Estevan and Esperanza would get a whole lot worse proves that she doesn’t care about what could happen to her because she will be helping people who might get a worse punishment. Her quote also shows that she cares about helping Estevan and Esperanza no matter what might happen to her which proves she’s motivated by morality by not by law because she risks so much to help them without any regard for her personal well being. To summarize, Taylor doing her favor for Estevan and Esperanza proves she cares more about mortality than law …show more content…
The favor that Estevan and Esperanza did for Taylor was pretending to be Turtle’s parents and lying to Mr. Jonas Wilford Armistead so that Taylor could take legal custody of Turtle. This was not a decision based in legality because pretending to be a child’s parents so that you can give said child to someone else is pretty obviously not a legal thing to do. This favor was also probably based off of a moral code because they did this right after Taylor did a favor for them..A final piece of proof that the favor was a decision based on a moral code is when Taylor describes the situation and says, “Esperanza and Estevan didn’t want to think about it. They told me, then and there, they wanted to do it” (Kingsolver 283). Estevan and Esperanza not having to think about helping Taylor proves that they didn’t need to consider the possible legal ramifications in lying for her because they knew that it was the morally right thing to do. It also proves that the decision was based in morality because Estevan and Esperanza knew that Taylor would be a better guardian for Turtle than her dad would be so they decided to break the law to give her the best possible life. Lastly, Estevan and Esperanza doing there favor for Taylor was a decision based on a moral code not a legal one. In conclusion, The Bean Trees has a consistent theme of decisions based on morality rather than legality. From