In the novel The Bean Trees, Barbara Kingsolver tends to linger upon six themes in particular. A significant theme in the Bean Trees was Community and support. . The characters in the novel learn from each other and help one another to survive in the world.

Throughout the book the narrator demonstrates how important community and support is by showing how people in others lives bring us through tough situations and make the person stronger and more independent

There are many passages in the novel that support the theme of community and support. Taylor is remembering a helicopter rescuing a lonely stewardess in a river.

"I did remember that airplane crash. On TV they showed the rescue helicopter dropping down a rope to save the only surviving stewardess from an icy river full of dead people. I remember just how she looked hanging on to that...