Foil

Character Role Analysis

Newt Hardbine and Taylor Greer

When Taylor recounts her childhood in Chapter One, she quips that she and Newt might have been brother and sister, for all she knew. Although we know that isn't really true, Newt's purpose in The Bean Trees is to show us what Taylor's life might have been like had she not had her mother's care and love to support her and raise her right. Newt dies young and tragically after a life of hardship and abuse (including his own abuse of his wife). And that's an end that Taylor is spared because of Alice Greer.