The Bean Trees

The Bean Trees uses vegetables to symbolize how both people and nature can exhibit signs of growth in difficult environments when they have the right types of support. When Taylor first arrives in Tucson, she’s amazed that Mattie can grow a vegetable garden in the desert. Mattie demonstrates how even the harsh, dry environment of Arizona can produce plentiful food if given the right kind of care. Turtle’s obsession with plants and vegetable words further explores this symbol. When she begins to talk, she’ll only say the names of vegetables in the garden, connecting her growth and resiliency to the growth and resiliency of the plants. This culminates in her discovery of the “bean trees,” otherwise known as wisteria vines, which produce seeds due to a mutually beneficial relationship with microorganisms in the soil known as rhizobia.

The novel links the ability to grow vegetables to nourish the body with food to the strong community bonds that Taylor develops in Tucson. The text equates vegetables and people since both need a healthy environment, which requires an ecological web of collaboration. At the end of the novel, Turtle’s song exemplifies how vegetables represent the need for humans to work together:

She watched the dark highway and entertained me with her vegetable-soup song, except that now there were people mixed in with the beans and potatoes: Dwayne Ray, Mattie, Esperanza, Lou Ann and all the rest.