How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
Which is not to say that we, me and Mama, were any better than the Hardbines or had a dime to our name. If you were to look at the two of us, myself and Newt side by side in the sixth grade, you could have pegged us for brother and sister. And for all I ever knew of my own daddy I can't say we weren't, except for Mama swearing up and down that he was nobody I knew and was long gone besides. (1.4)
Taylor doesn't really suspect or believe that Newt Hardbine could be her brother: she has too much faith in her Mama's word for that. By imagining that Newt could be taken for her brother, Taylor sets him up as her foil. Newt is a tragic symbol of what Taylor's life might have been like were it not for her Mama's guidance and love.
Quote #2
There were two things about Mama. One is she always expected the best out of me. And the other is that then no matter what I did, whatever I came home with, she acted like it was the moon I had just hung up in the sky and plugged in all the stars. Like I was that good. (1.46)
Taylor's self-confidence and self-respect don't come from nowhere: she knows how much she owes to her Mama's care and support. If you want more proof of the difference a kind, encouraging parent can make, compare Taylor's self-esteem to Lou Ann's. Whereas Taylor grew up being told that she could do anything she put her mind to, Lou Ann grew up under constant criticism—criticism she now dishes out to herself every minute of the day. Hey, telling yourself you look like cat puke isn't a sign of a happy camper.
Quote #3
All my life, Mama had talked about the Cherokee Nation as our ace in the hole. She'd had an old grandpa that was full-blooded Cherokee, one of the few that got left behind in Tennessee because he was too old or too ornery to get marched over to Oklahoma. Mama would say, "If we run out of luck we can always go live on the Cherokee Nation." She and I both had enough blood to qualify. According to Mama, if you're one-eighth or more they let you in. She called this our "head rights." (1.61)
Alice and Taylor get a certain satisfaction from claiming their Cherokee heritage, but neither woman really understands what it would mean to call themselves Cherokee, or get themselves officially enrolled. For both of them, Alice Stamper's Cherokee grandpa is nearly a mythic figure: they know enough to claim his blood, but not his culture.
Quote #4
"Is this your kid?"
She shook her head. "My dead sister's."
"Are you saying you want to give me this child?"
"Yes."
"If I wanted a baby I would have stayed in Kentucky," I informed her. "I could have had babies coming out my ears by now." (1.96-100)
Growing up in Pittman County gives Taylor the distinct impression that raising children is a burden—the kind of thing a woman does because she has no other choice. Getting through high school without getting pregnant is one of the greatest achievements of her life, according to her, and she isn't about to ruin things now.
Quote #5
The most amazing thing was the way that child held on. From the first moment I picked it up out of its nest of wet blanket, it attached itself to me by its little hands like roots sucking on dry dirt. I think it would have been easier to separate me from my hair. (1.144)
The little child's tenacious grip eventually earns her the nickname "Turtle," but check out the pointed simile that Taylor uses here! When Taylor associates the infant's "little hands" with "roots sucking on dry dirt," she makes the first of the novel's many symbolic comparisons between human beings and plants. You could say that this is where that symbol takes root (har har).
Quote #6
"It's so dry out here kids will dehydrate real fast," Mattie told me. "They'll just dry right up on you. You have to watch out for that."
"Oh, right," I said. I wondered how many other things were lurking around waiting to take a child's life when you weren't paying attention. I was useless. I was crazy to think I was doing this child a favor by whisking her away from the Cherokee Nation. (3.81-82)
Taylor isn't wrong: real consequences will come from her decision to bring Turtle away from Cherokee Nation territory, and from whatever family she might have left there. And Taylor isn't the most enlightened when it comes from protecting a lil' 'un from the elements. But to get that whole story you've got to pick up Pigs in Heaven, The Bean Trees' sequel.
Quote #7
"Lou Ann, I moved in here because I knew we'd get along. It's nice of you to make dinner for us all, and to take care of Turtle sometimes, and I know you mean well. But we're acting like Blondie and Dagwood here. All we need is some ignorant little dog named Spot to fetch me my slippers. It's not like we're a family, for Christ's sake. You got your own life to live, and I've got mine. You don't have to do all this stuff for me." (6.65)
Why exactly is Taylor so resistant to playing house with Lou Ann? How does it make her feel to be the Dagwood to Lou Ann's Blondie? This says plenty about perceived gender roles for these characters, as well as their choice in comic strips.
Quote #8
He seemed almost undecided about telling me this. "Sometimes in an environment of physical or emotional deprivation a child will simply stop growing, although certain internal maturation does continue. It's a condition we call failure to thrive.
"But she's thriving now. I ought to know. I buy her clothes."
"Well, yes, of course. The condition is completely reversible." (8.146-148)
Turtle's "failure to thrive" isn't simply a medical condition. It's also a lead-in to the central symbol of the novel itself—the "bean trees" (aka wisteria vines) that are able to thrive in poor soil because of the microscopic rhizobia that help them grow. As in the earlier passage that associates Turtle's hands with "roots sucking on dry dirt" (1.144), this one continues to establish the symbolic connection between human families and tiny little bacteria. Sounds gross, but it's a pretty powerful use of literary symbolism!
Quote #9
But this is the most interesting part: wisteria vines, like other legumes, often thrive in poor soil, the book said. Their secret is something called rhizobia. These are microscopic bugs that live underground in little knots on the roots. They suck nitrogen gas right out of the soil and turn it into fertilizer for the plant. (17.137)
As Taylor and Turtle sit in the Oklahoma City library reading the Horticultural Encyclopedia, the novel finally makes a direct connection between the rhizobia that help wisteria vines to flourish and the kinds of extended families that can help human beings to grow. "It's just the same as with people," Taylor tells Turtle: "The way Edna has Virgie, and Virgie has Edna, and Sandi has Kid Central Station, and everybody has Mattie. And on and on" (17.139). Hard to untangle yourself from the roots of that symbolism.
Quote #10
"Taylor, remember that time you were mad at me because you didn't want us to act like a family? That all we needed was a little dog named Spot? Well, don't get mad, but I told somebody that you and Turtle and Dwayne Ray were my family. Somebody at work said, 'Do you have family at home?' And I said, 'Sure,' without even thinking. I meant you all. Mainly I guess because we've been through hell and high water together. We know each other's good and bad sides, stuff nobody else knows." (7.165)
Aw, poor little Lou Ann, getting self-conscious about feeling close to Taylor. How does Taylor feel about Lou Ann's declaration of familial love? Is she now more comfortable thinking of Lou Ann and Dwayne Ray as family, or is she still haunted by terrible visions of Dagwood and Blondie? How has the perception of kinship, biological or otherwise, shifted between the first Blondie reference and this next spot of Spot?