Ashley Scibelli 9.13.2002
English 4 Honors
Mr. Sullivan
A Window into Taylor Greer's Family Identity Crisis
In Barbara Kingsolver's The Bean Trees, Taylor Greer seems to place much emphasis on the desire to leave her small town in Kentucky. I can understand wanting to leave a small dead end town, however the thought of wanting to get away from your one and only family so desperately is a distant idea to me. Therefore, looking into the life of Taylor gives me insights to how lucky I am to love and be closely connected to my family.
Starting in chapter one, "Miss Marietta" Greer cannot wait to change her name and head out to a place where her only family, her mother, is not local and she can start anew. To me, this is unfathomable. The search for a new identity I can identify with. For example, there have always been more than one Ashley on any sport team I have been on, therefore many people call me "Scibelli." I love the fact that I am the one and only Scibelli. However, I am Ashley Scibelli, the daughter of Lynn and Roger Scibelli. I belong to no other family and that is the way I love and know because my wonderful parents raised me with unlimited love and guidance. Maybe the funny part is that I am adopted. I am not biologically a Scibelli, but I would not be able to comprehend anything else. This is why understanding Taylor's identity crisis is a mystery to me. She belongs to a mother and grandmother who are her life and family. Taylor's mother loved and adored her. For example, she tells an anecdote of "when I (Taylor) was just a little kid I would go pond fishing on a Sunday and bring home the boniest mess of bluegills and maybe a bass the size of your thumb, and the way Mama would carry on you would think I'd caught the famous big lunker in Shep's Lake that old men were always chewing their tobacco and thinking about."1 With grateful childhood memories like that, why would she want to move across the country? When Taylor does, she does not even stay in contact with her mother. When she is close to home, she finally "called Mama from a pay phone at a Shell station. I dug two handfuls of coins out of my jeans pockets, splayed them out on the metal shelf, and dialed. I was scared to death she would hang up on me. She had every night. I hadn't said boo to her for almost two months, not even to congratulate her on getting married."2 One can really tell how much Taylor cares about her mother - she calls home out of convenience in Oklahoma and does not even talk to her mother that often! Coming from my background, I cannot perceive this.
Taylor's relationship with her family is a window that I enjoyed looking into because I am glad I could not relate. Unlike Taylor, even when I am having fun without family, I ALWAYS call my mother to see how everything is and to let her know I love her. Taylor's connection to her family is a new perspective of love that I need to look into a window of someone else's life to understand. I think the connection one should have with their family can be summed up in the words of a Cheers episode: "Time goes by so fast, people go in and out of your life. You must never miss the opportunity to tell these people how much they mean to you."
Associated Links to The Bean Trees