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Allusions
Key Examples in The Bean Trees
Chapter 1: The One to Get Away
Explanation and Analysis—Son of a Bitch:
In this scene from Chapter 1, dialect is used to convey both regional identity and emotional immediacy:
"Shit!” I said. “Shit fire son of a bitch!” I pushed and pushed, jumped in and popped the clutch, jumped out and pushed some more. I could see the child’s big eyes watching me in the dark. “This isn’t as dumb as you think,” I said. “It’s easier in Kentucky."
Related Themes:
Chapter 10: The Bean Trees
Explanation and Analysis—Spotted Pig:
In this chapter, Kingsolver uses both metaphor and dialect to weave a moment of comfort and perspective from a piece of inherited wisdom:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Even a spotted pig looks black at night. This is another thing Mama used to tell me quite often. It means that things always look different, and usually better, in the morning.
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Chapter 11: Dream Angels
Explanation and Analysis—Plugged Nickel:
In this exchange, Kingsolver uses dialect to root the narrator’s voice in a specific cultural and regional background:
Unlock with LitCharts A+“Immigration is making noises. They could come in and arrest them, and they’d be deported before you even had time to sit down and think about it.”
“Here?” I asked. “They would come into your house?” Mattie said yes. She also said, as I knew very well, that in that case Estevan’s and Esperanza’s lives wouldn’t be worth a plugged nickel.
“That just can’t be right,” I said, “that they would do that to a person, knowing they’d be killed. There’s got to be some other way.”
“The only legal way a person from Guatemala can stay here…”
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