Ivy and Bean

The point of view is a literary device that relates to the narrator. Though the book is about Ivy and Bean, and the girls comprise the title, neither Ivy nor Bean is the narrator. The point of view comes from a third-person limited voice. That is, the narrator isn’t a character in the story, but they’re someone outside the story. More so, the narrator doesn’t delve into the thoughts and emotions of every character, but they stick to Bean. The stress on Bean also makes the narration clear to follow and asserts the central role her character plays in the book.

As the narrator has access to what’s going on in Bean’s mind, the narrator can make statements like, “[N]ice, Bean knew, is another word for boring” (8). The narrator knows Bean thinks nice symbolizes boring because they’re allowed to enter and articulate Bean’s mentality. As the narrator can’t convey Ivy’s thoughts and feelings, they must let Ivy speak for herself. The reader knows Ivy feels similarly about the word “nice” because she tells Bean, “My mother keeps on saying what a nice girl you are. She's always telling me I should play with you. It's driving me nuts” (49). To make up for the lack of access to Ivy’s thoughts and feelings, the narrator relies on dialogue—what she says—to communicate her specific perspective.

The limited third-person point of view allows the narrator to be slightly misleading. If the narrator was omniscient and knew everything about the characters, they could intervene immediately and tell the reader that Bean’s judgment of Ivy is inaccurate: Ivy isn’t a “nice girl.” Since the narrator is limited, they can’t make such a sweeping statement. The point of view allows the misperception to exist until Bean and Ivy realize on their own that they misjudged each other.

For other moments, the third-person narrator allows for clarity. Committed to witchcraft and the imagination that it symbolizes, the girls often possess a farfetched view of reality. When Nancy falls into the pit, the girls conclude that Ivy’s dancing spell is the cause. The narrator subtly counters their creative interpretation by offering an objective depiction, “Back and forth she wobbled, trying to keep her balance” (103). The narrator doesn’t explicitly reject the girls’ version, but they offer another possibility, showing the reader that there might be a second explanation for why Nancy fell into the worm pit.

Juxtaposition is a literary device whereby the author places two separate people or things side by side to easily compare their differences. The title contains a juxtaposition, as the girls' names, Bean and Ivy, signify divergence. Bean links to beans—a hearty and filling food. Ivy connects to the green plant, which is sometimes poisonous. Bean is like a bean in that she’s robust and no-frills. Ivy is like ivy in that she’s a witch with the potential to cast dangerous spells. Yet, the title hints that Ivy and Bean aren’t such opposites. The conjunction “and”—or the plus symbol—indicates that Bean and Ivy go together. The title isn’t Ivy or Bean, nor is it Ivy Versus Bean. The term “and” or the “+” hints that the juxtaposition between the girls is a red herring.

Juxtaposition is central to the theme of Judging a Person Versus Knowing Them, and, in the first chapters, Barrows’s narrator uses it often to convey how assumptions based on appearances can lead people to believe they’re opposite from each other. The narrator writes, “Ivy wore a dress every day. Bean wore a dress when her mother made her. Ivy was always reading a big book. Bean never read big books. Reading made her jumpy” (9). The narrator goes from Ivy to Bean, then back to Ivy, then concludes with Bean. The back-and-forth produces sharp differences and juxtaposition. The narrator creates dissimilar images of the girls, and so do Blackall’s illustrations.

Once the girls start interacting with each other, the judging ends, and the juxtaposition vanishes. The girls realize that their differences are superficial. They look like they wouldn’t get along, yet now that they’re together, they discover that they have a lot in common. They become friends and share the same spaces—Ivy’s room, the various backyards, Bean’s playhouse, and more—so there’s little to juxtapose. They’re not different entities but friends working together to put the spell on Nancy.

As Bean and Ivy stop juxtaposing one another, the juxtaposition switches to Bean and Ivy versus Nancy. As an antagonist, Nancy is verifiably different from Ivy and Bean. Nancy has separate interests. Her concerns are shopping and getting her ears pierced. She ridicules Ivy and Bean’s witchcraft, telling them, “You guys are complete and total dweebs” (97). The sustained juxtaposition between Ivy and Bean as a unit and Nancy creates conflict and gives the girls a target for the dancing spell.