How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
It was clear to me that the whole intention of bringing the Cherokees here was to get them to lie down and die without a fight. The Cherokees believed God was in trees. Mama told me this.
[. . .]
From what I could see, there was not one tree in the entire state of Oklahoma. (1.62-63)
Taylor's sense of despair at encountering the Great Plain gives her an important insight into the injustice of forced removal and relocation. When a culture is rooted in specific landscapes, ecosystems, and territories, dislocation—which is exactly what happened to the Cherokee Nation—can be absolutely devastating.
Quote #5
We crossed the Arizona state line at sunup. The clouds were pink and fat and hilarious-looking, like the hippo ballerinas in a Disney movie. The road took us through a place called Texas canyon that looked nothing like Texas, heaven be praised for that, but looked like nothing else I had ever seen either. It was a kind of forest, except that in place of trees there were all these puffy-looking rocks shaped like roundish animals and roundish people. (3.1)
The Arizona landscape tickles Taylor as pink as a Disney hippo, and inspires her to live there for good. Nothing like picturing stacks of rocks as petrified dinosaur turds and clouds as cartoon ballerinas to inspire a big move.
Quote #6
We got out of the open car and stood under the concrete wings to stay dry. Turtle was looking interested in the scenery, which was a first. Up to then the only thing that appeared to interest her was my special way of starting the car.
"This is a foreign country," I told her. "Arizona. You know as much about it as I do. We're even steven." (3.9)
This is the first of many instances throughout The Bean Trees when Taylor describes herself as a foreigner in a new country. Coming from the relatively self-contained Pittman County, she finds it hard to think of America as a unified nation. To her, individual states seem much more like unique and foreign lands.