Feminist Resiliency: Reading of Barbara Kingsolver's The Bean Trees

Abstract

This research attempts to explore feminist resiliency in Barbara Kingsolver's novel The Bean Trees.It tries to probe into the problem of the crisis of female identity and subversion of patriarchal norms and values. The main protagonist of the novel, Taylor is wonderfully new and revolutionary. For the sake of freedom, she avoids domestic life and pregnancy, she leaves home and later on she is destined to care a neglected child and she invests her whole effort and conscience to adopt the baby legally. In the novel, her characters are either amazingly resilient or unbelievably foolhardy but only for the cause of the community and the group rather than for individual self-aggrandizement. Kingslover gives a message that the power of creation and motherhood as well as the need for action and adventure is essential for growth and productivity. In the novel, Kingsolver has successfully developed Taylor as a new female archetype, a hero who is both mother and adventurer.