In Bea Arbores, author Barbara Kingsolver creates a community of characters who depend on each other to survive personal struggles, unexpected moments, and even everyday challenges within an increasingly complex world. As these characters travel through life, they encounter and connect in profound and often life-saving ways. In the process they create a community among supportive people that functions like a large extended family, albeit a non-traditional one. In doing so, Kingsolver not only illustrates the importance of the family as an emotional support system in today’s society, but changing the face of the family unit itself, which is defined more by love than structure, and which almost always prevails; free women govern.
Alice Greer, the first strong woman introduced in the novel, served as a role model for many other women who came. later in the novel, a single parent, is the head of a non-traditional, yet highly functional, family includes only two people: Alicia and her daughter, Taylor. Although a single parent who struggles financially, Alicia Taylor as She raised a confident young woman who was not held back by anything like her father’s poverty or low economic status in her hometown of Pittman, Kentucky. When Taylor’s father, Foster Greer, found out her mother was pregnant, Alice was anything but. In fact, Alice tells Taylor that “the best part of the deal is Jackson Purchase” (6). pregnant-women”>pregnant women around him he finds pregnant women, eager to apply for a job in the Lab. However, he does this only after his mother gives him a pep talk: “I see the way, the man is nothing but terrible. You, me, the president… The only difference between one who stands good and one who breathes is that the kind of staff are stuck there” ( 7).This love, support and mutual admiration define this two-person, non-traditional family. As Taylor recalls: “There were two things about Mama. One of the best ever awaits me. The second thing is that whatever I did, whatever I brought home, it did as if it were the moon that had recently been suspended in the sky and was behind all the stars” (13). Because of this strong mother-daughter relationship, Taylor finally finds the courage to leave Pittman altogether to escape unmarried motherhood and become the “best” person she can be.
Ironically, as Taylor drives west through Oklahoma, motherhood begins for her by sheer chance when a Cherokee woman puts a quiet, still child in the passenger seat. his car “If I had a baby I would stay in Kentucky,” Taylor informs the woman (24). Between this responsibility and following her inner instincts to be smart from this boy as Alice stood by, Taylor feels an immediate connection with the girl-a American who, as Taylor found, was already engaged in sexual abuse and “I couldn’t think of some miserable thing” (31). The connection stems from Taylor’s memories of sexually abusing girls at Pittman. However, it also stems from something more profound for Taylor: A small percentage of Cherokee blood that comes from his mother and grandfather. Alice represents her Cherokee heritage as herself and the “head of rights” or “ace in the hole”: “If we run from luck, we can always live in the Cherokee Nation,” Taylor’s mother says (17-18). Soon, Taylor finds herself writing to her mother about Turtle: “I found my rights, Mama. They’re coming home with me” (32). Not only does Taylor commit to re-creating that same little appearance, but nurturing the family unit that her mother created for her, she realizes that she has to “come home” to find her place in the world with Turtle.
Unlike Taylor’s small childhood family, Taylor’s new family doesn’t stay very long. In fact, the development of the novel expands with every new person that happens to meet it. For example, while driving the Western Turtle, Taylor suffers two flat tires and is at Jesus Tires used in Tucson, Arizona. Mattie, a store owner and widow, recognizes that Taylor is a thirsty boy and not money. While the turtle is sipping juice in a draft, Mattie casually mentions to the turtle that it would become dehydrated without a drink in the desert heat: “‘This is how dry the kids are going to dehydrate real fast,'” Mattie told me… I was surprised how many other people were looking around waiting for the baby’s life. (60). Watching and listening to Mattie, Taylor realizes how little she knows about motherhood and that she must find work and a place to stay for the Turtles. e-info.vn/tag/childhood-fears”>childhood fears tires of exploding: “while I was not paying attention, it took me seriously. 108). Here, Mattie’s words of encouragement echo those of Alice, and it’s clear that Taylor and Mattie form a strong, mother-daughter relationship. In the process, Taylor begins to realize the value of trusting others and even relying on help. While Taylor is aware that she and Turtle are in the process of “finding their own way” (64), she also begins to consider Mattie “family.” Mattie, in turn, welcomes Taylor and Turtle into her world, which includes a community of people who support each other in ways that Taylor never imagined.
Taylor’s family continues to expand as he meets yet another strong woman: Lou Ann Ruiz. While looking for a new place to live with Turtle in Tucson, he responds to Taylor Lou Ann in the paper. An estranged wife and young mother who is also from Kentucky, Lou Ann immediately connects with Taylor:
“Well, my gosh… here you are so skinny and smart and cute and everything, and me and Dwayne Ray, well we’re just trying to get a bunch here from… who in the world would want to move here with us?”
“Stop, will you? Quit making everyone want to be better than you.”
Lou Ann covered her mouth with her hand… “It’s been so long,” she said. “You speak like me (101-102)”.
Sharing the same house, Taylor, Turtle, Lou Ann, and Dwayne Ray begin to feel like family with each other. Ironically, the women’s friendship is not only based on a common Kentucky dialect or common parents, but also on their differences. For example, as illustrated above, the self-confidence that Taylor gained from her mother’s repeated expressions of doubt to Lou Ann. Finally, this allows Lou Ann to separate herself from her abusive, estranged husband and find the courage to get a job: “Lou Ann loved her job… If Het Mama “had given diligent-employee awards, Lou Ann would have needed a trophy case” (204), Taylor says. Indeed, Taylor and Lou Ann help each other with everything from confidence to motherhood. Ironically, this new and extended Taylor family, which includes Mattie and several other characters, is something that Taylor has always wanted;
When I was a child, paper dolls... Their names were Mom, Dad, Sis; and Junior I played with these dolls desperately, lovingly until the paper arms and heads fell apart. I loved them despite the fact that their tight circles were way beyond my reach like football players’ and cheerleaders’ circle in later years (185).
Although Taylor’s “growing family” is nothing more than the traditional paper dolls she once imagined, Taylor eventually realizes that she never really needed the “specimen” of family happiness. This realization comes at the end of the novel, when Taylor drives Turtle to Tucson, after officially putting her in Oklahoma adopted. Here, Taylor marvels at his happy, talkative boy, who sings the names of his very large members, in a poem about vegetables [Turtle]. But he does not seem to refer to the turtle … his vegetable, except that now there were people mixed with beans and potatoes: Dwayne Ray, Mattie…Lou ann and all the others. as he realizes that he is the main character in Taylor’s life.
In this last scene, Kingsolver confirms that the value of the family, however nontraditional, can be an essential and even life-saving system for this diverse group of people, as well as for society in general. Each from different life experiences and facing different challenges, these characters find each other on their journey through life and are able to find each other because of it.
