Bean Trees Chapter 07


Chapter 7

  1. What are the names of the couple from Guatemala?
  2. Whom does Esperanza remind Taylor of and why?
  3. What affects Esperanza so strongly?
  4. What is sad or poignant about Turtle asleep and dreaming?
  5. What almost causes an accident and why does Taylor almost feel like crying?
  6. What are Turtle’s first words?
  7. What is Lou Ann’s attitude to her looks and her hair?
  8. Who comes over to Lou Ann’s and brings a portable TV?
  9. How have Lou Ann and Taylor worked out their household duties?
  10. How does Taylor explain or define Lou Ann’s fears?
  11. What colour does Edna Poppy wear?
  12. What does Mattie’s interview on TV concern?
  13. What Anglicized names does Estevan use?
  14. What job does Estevan have?
  15. What is Virgie Parsons’ attitude to immigrants and refugees?
  16. Summarize Estevan’s South American story about heaven and hell. What is the point of the story?

New Characters

  • Esperanza, Hope
  • Estevan, Steven
  • Edna Poppy
  • Mrs. Virgie Mae Parsons

Idioms, Slang, and Difficult Words

  • discombobble
  • plumb
  • blowsy
  • pruneface
  • gypped
  • picayune
  • blanched

Cultural and Historical Allusions

  • People Magazine
  • tom boy
  • Tube top
  • Sherman tank
  • Guatemalan embroidery
  • Russian Matryoshka dolls
  • Mohawk haircut
  • Navy-Bean soup
  • Hungarian goulash
  • “Blue Bayou”
  • Star Trek
  • Captain Kirk
  • shingled hair cut
  • Dorothy Hamill hair cut
  • wok
  • cheongsam, qipao, or banner dress

Medical, Natural, and Geographic Allusions

  • Guatemala City
  • rutabaga
  • yak
  • lizards
  • desert canyons
  • desert streams
  • Cottonwood trees
  • Mesquite trees
  • quails
  • hypochondriac
  • Sciatica
  • Roseola
  • hives
  • Frankfort, Kentucky
  • Acarophobia, fear of itching or of the insects that cause itching
  • Acerophobia, fear of sourness
  • Acrophobia, fear of heights
  • stretch marks
  • douches

Great Quotes

  • “It was a sweet sight. With the cottonwood shade rippling over them they looked like a drawing from one of those old-fashioned children’s books that show babies in underwater scenes, blowing glassy bubbles and holding on to fishes’ tails.” (94-5)
  • “Turtle always had desperate, active dreams. In sleep, it seemed, she was free to do all the things that during her waking life she could only watch.” (95)
  • “‘I ought to be shot for looking like this,’ she’d tell the mirror in the front hall before going out the door. ‘I look like I’ve been drug through hell backwards,’ she would say on just any ordinary day. ‘Like death warmed over. Like something the cat puked up.’” (99)