The Bean Trees
by Barbara Kingsolver

The Bean Trees: Style 1 key example

Key Examples in The Bean Trees

Chapter 1: The One to Get Away
Explanation and Analysis:

In Chapter 1, the narrator’s voice immediately establishes the straightforward, honest, and conversational style that carries through the rest of The Bean Trees. The tone is candid and familiar, as if Taylor were speaking directly to a trusted friend rather than composing a polished memoir.

Missy was what everyone called me […] because when I was three […] I told my own mother not to call me Marietta but Miss Marietta […] The thing you have to understand is, it was just like Mama to do that. When I was the littlest kid I would go pond fishing […] and the way Mama would carry on you would think I’d caught the famous big lunker in Shep’s Lake […] ‘That’s my big girl bringing home the bacon,’ she would say.