Esperanza Character Analysis in The Bean Trees

A Guatemalan refugee and Estevan’s wife, Esperanza is badly shaken by the loss of her daughter Ismene during the war in Guatemalan. However, she begins to heal that wound by bonding with Turtle and eventually helps Taylor gain legal custody of Turtle by posing as Turtle’s biological mother despite the high risk this put on her own undocumented status in the US. She finds the act of “giving” Turtle to Taylor to be healing, a kind of symbolic parting from her own lost daughter.

Esperanza Quotes in The Bean Trees

The The Bean Trees quotes below are all either spoken by Esperanza or refer to Esperanza. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:

).

“It's terrible to lose somebody,” I said, “I mean, I don’t know firsthand, but I can imagine it must be. But it's also true that some people never have anybody to lose, and I think that's got to be so much worse.”

Related Characters: Taylor Greer (Marietta Greer) (speaker), Esperanza, Ismene

Page Number and Citation: 200

Explanation and Analysis:

“A human being can be good or bad or right or wrong, maybe. But how can you say a person is illegal? You just can't. That's all there is to it.”

Related Characters: Taylor Greer (Marietta Greer) (speaker), Estevan, Esperanza

Page Number and Citation: 261

Explanation and Analysis:

Here were a mother and her daughter, nothing less. A mother and child – in a world that could barely be bothered with mothers and children – who were going to be taken apart. Everybody believed it. Possibly Turtle believed it. I did.

Related Characters: Taylor Greer (Marietta Greer) (speaker), Turtle (April), Esperanza

Page Number and Citation: 288

Explanation and Analysis:

Esperanza Quotes in The Bean Trees

The The Bean Trees quotes below are all either spoken by Esperanza or refer to Esperanza. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:

).

“It's terrible to lose somebody,” I said, “I mean, I don’t know firsthand, but I can imagine it must be. But it's also true that some people never have anybody to lose, and I think that's got to be so much worse.”

Related Characters: Taylor Greer (Marietta Greer) (speaker), Esperanza, Ismene

Page Number and Citation: 200

Explanation and Analysis:

“A human being can be good or bad or right or wrong, maybe. But how can you say a person is illegal? You just can't. That's all there is to it.”

Related Characters: Taylor Greer (Marietta Greer) (speaker), Estevan, Esperanza

Page Number and Citation: 261

Explanation and Analysis:

Here were a mother and her daughter, nothing less. A mother and child – in a world that could barely be bothered with mothers and children – who were going to be taken apart. Everybody believed it. Possibly Turtle believed it. I did.

Related Characters: Taylor Greer (Marietta Greer) (speaker), Turtle (April), Esperanza

Page Number and Citation: 288

Explanation and Analysis: