The Beans of Egypt, Maine

By: Carolyn Chute

Author’s Date and Cultural Perspective

• The book was completed in 1985.

• Carolyn herself was born in Maine and grew up there.

• Carolyn did not even graduate from high school.

• She was of the lower class growing up and lived next to “Beans.”

• She offers a story of a low class family based on her own experiences.

Opposing Forces in the Conflict

• This book principally sets the middle class against the lower class.

• The book centers on how the middle class and even the reader responds to the lower class way of life.

Important Places• The story takes place in Egypt, Maine

at either Earlene’s neighborhood or Roberta’s neighborhood or Madeline Rowe’s neighborhood.

• Earlene lives with her father in a ranch house that he built. They live across the street from the Beans, a large incestuous family who live in a trailer.

• Roberta Bean lives in a house with her umpteen children, all of incest. Her neighbors are of middle class and look down on her even though she goes out of her way to help them.

• When Earlene becomes pregnant and has a child, she goes into a depression and Roberta saves her. Earlene then moves in with Beal in Madeline Rowe’s House.

Symbols• Donald Goodspeed’s Tie- Donald

Goodspeed is Roberta’s neighbor. He is a highway engineer who wears and asphalt suit and black ties. He symbolizes the development of Egypt, Maine. For the beginning of its existence, Egypt, Maine was a simple rural place composed mostly of the lower class, but as the book progresses, roads are built and people of the middle and upper classes begin to build summer homes in the same neighborhoods as the lower class people.

• Beal’s Beard- Beal’s Beard is often described as having serpent like qualities. It seems to always be growing uncontrollably and overtaking Earlene. The beard is symbolic of Beal himself and his power over Earlene. Beal has a serpent like grip over Earlene and she is not strong enough to escape his grasp.

Symbols Continued• The Smiths- The Smiths are

your stereotypical upper class family. They represent the “average” American family and it is no shock that they would go out of their ways to avoid the Beans. They have an SUV, two kids with leather car seats, and build a huge house across from Madeline Rowe’s house. Like many upper and middle class families, they distance themselves from the likes of the Beans and look down on the ways that they live.

• Animal Imagery- The Beans are often associated with animals. They are big like bears, walk like monkeys, burrow like moles, and have fox colored eyes. They are “predators” and associated with uncivilized beings. However, they greater family ties than anyone and underneath it all are simply trying to survive.

Conflict with Self• Though the major conflict

of the book is not one that is man vs. self, there is, in a way, a struggle that Earlene has with herself. For a time, Earlene is severely depressed over what her life has become and she comes to the brink of death. She cannot deal with the fact that her child is a Bean and has fox colored eyes.

Conflict with Society• The central conflict of Beans is a society

conflict. • The obvious conflict is between classes. • The Beans are looked down on because

there is incest in that Beal is the father to his aunt Roberta’s children.

• However, underneath is it all, they are just like any other family.

• They lack the privileges that come with being financially stable. They live in the moment and don’t plan for the future.

• However, they all care for each other and are just trying to provide for their individual families.

• They are a different family, but a family none the less.

• The other conflict with society is the Bean’s inability to apparently escape the society they live in.

• With each generation of children comes a new chance for change but it seems apparent that they are incapable of escaping their society.

• Most Bean babies are born with fox colored eyes suggesting that they are doomed to become Bean.

• Beal showed promise toward the beginning because he had a good heart and potential, but he eventually fell into the Bean way of life.

Setting Influence• The setting makes the novel. • The Beans of Egypt, Maine

takes place in the innards of Maine where life is “different.”

• The characters are all the results of environments they grew up in. One generation is like the next and so on.

• It is this totally new setting that causes the reader to view the characters in the way that they do.

• Because of their ways of life and place that they live, the Beans are looked down upon.

• They are low class, incestuous, and unemployed for the most part, so the upper class people who move in are quick to judge.

Under an Illusion• Earlene is under the illusion

that all Beans are bad. • From the start of a young age,

Earlene’s father told her the Beans were bad and that she should stay away.

• Because of his teachings, she doesn’t give the Beans a change really.

• When Beal Bean tries to be nice to her and show her his puppies, she is mean to him because she assumes he is bad without ever really getting to know him.

• To her, all Beans are evil and they are going to “burn in HELL.”

• It doesn’t matter to her whether or not they change or whether or not she’s wrong all together.

Mistake• Earlene makes the mistake

of not listening to her father, running away, and getting pregnant by Beal Bean.

• Earlene and her father get into a fight and Earlene decides to run away.

• She gets picked up on the road by a man who turns out to be Beal Bean.

• Beal takes her to his aunt’s house and essentially rapes her in the attic.

• She goes home but becomes pregnant.

• From that moment on, she is a Bean in her own way. Beanness is contagious. Even if someone doesn’t have Bean blood, they become Bean by being around the family enough.

• Earlene loses her faith for a while as a result of her situation.

Anyone Change?• Earlene changes into a more Bean-

like person. • At the beginning of the novel, she

fears the Beans and looks down on them.

• She also has a fairly good sense of faith thanks to her grandmother.

• However, as the novel progresses, she gets caught up in the Bean family and loses her commitment to her faith.

• She does however “redeem” herself in the end after Beal dies when she reclaims her faith and her own family.

• Another character who greatly changes is Rueben.

• He started off being a bully and a real jerk but he changed.

• Rueben was a wife beater whose temper got him into a lot of trouble and his lack of fear of the law landed him in jail.

• Rueben returns from jail and his wife has remarried and Earlene is living in his home.

• The old Rueben would have flipped like Beal and tried to kill his wife but the new Rueben found the strength to walk away.

• He is by no means perfect, but he is better. He found his flaws and tried to change them.

The Villain• Beal is the closest thing to a villain here.• He does have mental issues but that does

not excuse his behavior. • He takes advantage of the woman in his

life and uses his strength and power to control them and get what he wants.

• He leaves his aunt Roberta to raise his umpteen children and he is just ridiculous.

• He is having kids with two women and he uses his force too readily to resolve issues.

• Beal also shoots up his neighbor’s house. He has his reasons but shooting at a house where a man and wife and two kids live is simply inexcusable.

Narration• The Beans of Egypt, Maine

has two narrative perspectives.

• Half the story is told from Earlene’s point of view.

• In her view, the reader sees an objective side of the Beans.

• The opinions are hers so the Beans are cast in a negative light and seen as animalistic, uncivilized, predators.

• However, the other half of the book is told from a semi-biased point of view and this narrator shows understanding of the Beans.

• This narrator understands that the Beans are just like most families; they love each other, they look after one another, they do all they can to provide for their families, and they are simply trying to survive.

Human Value Asserted• This book forces people to value the

lower class. • It was written in the hopes that

people would see that, although the lower class lives different from one reason or another, they are not freaks.

• The hope was that the reader would empathize with the family and see that people of lower classes have no choice but to live for the moment.

• They are not in situations where they can think and plan for the future because they are too worried about making it through today.

• Despite how unconventional the Beans may seem to us, they are in fact admirable because they are just trying to survive like anyone else.

Ones Lost

• Earlene gets lost for a while.

• She loses her commitment to her religion and her family but once she escapes Beal’s grasp, she reverts back to her faith and father.

Cultures at Odds• Culture class is huge. • Roberta and Goodspeed clash

often. She tries to be nice and he misinterprets all her acts of kindness. She helps him with his car trouble and he assumes that that means she loves him. Then, she offers him the best part of the rabbit meat and he thinks that that is her way of insulting him. She is just genuinely this kind person but Goodspeed is of a higher class and cannot step out of his box and realize that she doesn’t have an agenda.

• There is also a culture clash between Earlene and the Smith’s. The Smiths keep their distance from the Beans because they don’t understand how they live.

Parallels• Pretty much every book deals

with situations where the ways of life of a group of people are different.

• Things Fall Apart was about a new culture and it is notable that those so quick to accept the tribal way of life are not so quick to accept the Bean way of life.

• In The Awakening, people looked at Edna with disbelief when she tried to do something deemed unacceptable by her neighbor’s ways of life.

Tone• The tone changes often in the

novel. • When Earlene talks, the tone is

snooty and critical. She criticizes everyone, including herself. In her eyes, neither the Beans nor her father nor her grandfather can do anything right and she over analyzes and criticizes everything.

• However, the tone of the narrator is mainly sympathetic. She searches for the good in the Beans and is the one who really places a mirror to the reader as far as judgment goes.

• The overall tone of the novel is one of compassion. The book forces the reader to enter the life of a family in a situation separate from their own. The book then shows multiple perspectives on that family and hopefully the reader gains compassion for the family.

Diction • The diction combines

simple language with dialects.

• The words, like the Beans are simple and the dialects genuine.

• The characters speak in broken grammar due to their lack of education.

• The diction helps stress of understanding the simplicity of life and the importance of education as a means of escape.