Barbara Kingsolver, in her novel The Bean Trees, utilizes figurative language to emphasize on daughters and families that exhibits the harsh truth behind being a person. Lou Ann ponders this when another character named Lee Sing states, “ ‘Feeding a girl is like feeding the neighbor’s New Year pig. All that work. In the end, it goes to some other family’ ” (43). This simile that compares girls to New Year pig stresses that the effort that parents put into their daughters will be for no benefit towards them; however, instead to another family because the daughters will mature and leave them for a husband. Lee Sing believes that girls are simply a waste of time and food because they will not be around the family.
Barbara Kingsolver, in her novel The Bean Trees, utilizes figurative language to emphasize on daughters and families that exhibits the harsh truth behind being a person. Lou Ann ponders this when another character named Lee Sing states, “ ‘Feeding a girl is like feeding the neighbor’s New Year pig. All that work. In the end, it goes to some other family’ ” (43). This simile that compares girls to New Year pig stresses that the effort that parents put into their daughters will be for no benefit towards them; however, instead to another family because the daughters will mature and leave them for a husband. Lee Sing believes that girls are simply a waste of time and food because they will not be around the family.