The Bean Trees The novel The Bean Trees, by Barbara Kingsolver is a story that possesses many different themes throughout its duration. As you read you can see how these themes develop and start to mold the whole idea of how the story is laid out. Themes such as women and men, names as forms of identity, natural growth, single motherhood, and symbiotic relationships all come into play and develop gradually throughout the novel. As the reader reads through each chapter they can identify one if not more of these themes in each one. When I first began to read this book I was not to sure that I was going to enjoy reading it that much. Then as I read further into the book I began to get an actual feel for what the characters were going through and why they may have been acting the way that they were. I especially enjoyed Taylor's character and the first couple chapters that Taylor narrates because you can see that the way that she views that world is much different than most people. She has a sort of small town state of mind that is very unique from the way that I look at things. You can see that as she goes through different situation she tries to deal with them based on the knowledge that she learned from living in small town Kentucky. At times it is very funny the way she attempts to handle things that come her way, such as wanting to call 1-800-THE-LORD thinking that it might be a source for answers to her questions. Even the way that she named Turtle for the way that she held on to her and wouldn't let go is in a way funny in itself. A major theme throughout the book that seemed to stand out very strongly to me was the fact that all the mothers in the story were single mothers, with the exception of Esperanza but she is no longer a mother since her child was kidnapped. Taylor is a single parent raising Turtle (April) as was Taylor's mother raising her. Also Lou Ann Ruiz raises Dwayne Ray by herself since Angel left her...