The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd Essay

The Queen bee is the novel’s symbol of a mother figure and is used throughout Lily’s

The equality between the blacks and whites was a slow progression in American history. The majority of white people were prejudice against black people causing many disputes. In the novel Secret Life of Bees written by Sue Monk Kidd, Lily Owens, who was a young white girl who was able to overcome the social constraints against black people, like the Boatwright sisters. Firstly, even though Lily is a different race than the sisters, they allow her to stay in their home and care for her. Secondly, Lily felt more comfortable with the Boatwright sisters than her father. Thirdly, Lily and the sisters develop a mutual respect for each other. As a result, the relationship between Lily and the Boatwright sisters shows that the colour of skin does

“There is nothing perfect,’ August said from the doorway. ‘There is only life” (Kidd 256). This quote from The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd explains Lily Owens life, a young girl with an unloving father and a mother who abandoned her and was later shot and killed by her own daughter, Lily. Lily has a hard time finding her place in the world and understanding why her life is the way it is. She decides it is time for her to take charge of her own life. She finds herself in Tiburon, South Carolina with her nanny Rosaleen and three black women, August, June and May who unravel the story to her mother’s past. Lily’s story can be seen in different layers, the most significant layers are the religious, thematic and symbolic layers. These three layers are essential when trying to gain understanding of The Secret Life of Bees.

“‘People can start out one way, and by the time life gets through with them they end up completely different’” (Kidd 293). This quote from August Boatwright perfectly encompasses what happens to Lily during The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. All throughout the novel, the increased maturity of Lily’s character is very noticeable. At the beginning of the book, Lily, a 14-year-old white girl who is living in the South in the 1960’s, accepts segregation without questioning it. By the end, her perspective on life and others changes to reflect a more sophisticated woman. Through characterization, Lily matures as a person because she learns how to face conflicts as an adult and treat people in a grown-up way.

For example, only a few weeks after staying in the pink house, August asks Lily what she loves, Lily responds, “‘And since coming here, I’ve learned to love bee’s and honey.’ I wanted to add, And I love you, I love you, but I felt too awkward,” (Kidd, 140). Lily tells August about the many things that she loves, she even wants to communicate her deep admiration for August but is unable to. August is like a mother figure to Lily also because she cares a lot about her and provides Lily with a kind of support and love that no one has ever expressed to her. For example, when Lily finally tells August about how she killed her mother and expresses how she feels unlovable, August consoles her and ensures her that she is admirable. “‘That’s a terrible, terrible thing for you to live with. But you’re not unlovable. Even if you did accidentally kill her, you are still the most dear, most lovable girl I know,” (Kidd, 242). Throughout her entire life, T. Ray never cared enough to emotionally support Lily, and Rosaleen’s personality was too snarky for her to understand Lily’s position. Lily finally has someone to talk to and releases all her pent-up guilt, regret, and pain to August. August and the sisters of Mary also provide Lily with a sense of motherly instinct and protection. For example, when T. Ray tries to come and take Lily back to the peach farm, they all stand up for her and protect her from her

Haunted by the her own memories, Lily Owens finds comfort in the humming of the bees. In the novel, The Secret Life of Bees, Sue Monk Kidd writes about the life of young girl whose spontaneous decisions lead her to her mother’s past. Lily’s life has revolved around the lack of a mother. Her father, T. Ray, is a harsh and unloving peach farmer who punishes Lily unreasonably and does not fulfil his father like position. Lily’s adventure begins after catching a few bees in a jar. She empathizes with them as they are stuck and alone, something she understands all too well. On the day of her birthday, Lily and her negro nanny, Rosaleen, go out into town to register for voting. Rosaleen and Lily are on their way when a group of white men begin to harass Rosaleen and degrade her for being a negro. Rosaleen pours her spit jug on the shoes of the man and is given no mercy when she is beaten. With Rosaleen ending up in jail, Lily returns to the comfort of the bees once again. As she opens the jar and watches the bees escape, Lily follows suit and flees from home. She breaks Rosaleen out of the hospital and they hitchhike their way to Tiburon, South Carolina. Lily believes that her mother, Deborah, had once visited Tiburon and where she had obtained a picture of a Black Madonna. Lily has spent her whole life looking for new information and connections between herself and her mother. With luck and fate on her side, Lily finds the home of the Boatwright sisters, the creators of the Black

The Secret Life of Bees is a novel written by Sue Monk Kidd. It is about a girl, named Lily, who goes to another town to seek answers about her mother. In the novel Lily starts maturing throughout the course of months. Lily has many mother figures who teach her different lessons. August teaches Lily that race doesn’t matter, June teaches Lily about love, and Rosaleen teaches Lily that the truth isn’t always good.

In The Secret Life of Bees, Sue Monk Kidd’s focuses on prejudice through descriptive comparison and a shift in tone to reveal the harsh and racist standards of the society in the book. In doing so, Kidd describes the racial prejudice that those of a minority has faced due to the majority’s biases and ignorance. In the novel, our main character, Lily Owens, runs away from home with Rosaleen and lives with the Boatwright sisters in Tiburon, South Carolina. The Boatwright sisters, however, are colored women and Lily is a young, white female. One of the sisters, August, sparks her interest and Lily describes her as “so intelligent [and is] so cultured” (Kidd 78). As Lily thinks to herself, she explains her father’s prejudice against colored women

In the book The Secret Life of Bees the author brings to light the Jim Crow era in which Lily, the main character, lives in and is influenced by the world around her.

The fictional novels “The Secret Life of Bees” by Sue Monk Kidd and “The Chosen” by Chaim Potok are coming of age stories about young protagonists. “The Secret Life of Bees” depicts the life of Lily Owens as she runs away from her abusive father, T. Ray, with her black caregiver, Rosaleen. Lily is seeking a connection to her dead mother while establishing new relationships in a new town called Tiburon, SC. Similarly, ‘The Chosen” portrays the journey of Danny Saunders as he breaks away from the path paved for him while coping with the lack of a father-son relationship. Within both novels, “The Secret Life of Bees” and “The Chosen”, the lack of parental figures in both Lily and Danny’s lives causes both protagonists to seek others to fill in these positions as seen when Lily relies on Rosaleen, the Black Madonna, and the Boatwright sisters and Danny seeks support from Reuven’s family.

Lily Owens is the main character as well as the narrator in the novel The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd. Lily is a fourteen year old white girl living in racially segregated Sylvan, South Carolina. The story is set in the mid 1960’s. When we are first introduced to Lily, she lives with her abusive father on a peach farm.

This concept leads Lily to believe that the Virgin Mary is in many ways her mother, even though she is a mother to thousands of other people as well (Emanuel 41). Lily receives support and love from August and the community like the bees, though it is a secret to the rest of the world. The bees act as pathfinders for Lily as she learns more about herself, along with Zach

Fourteen year old Lily Owens lives with her cruel father who has piled her with the guilt and responsibility of her mothers' death when she was a young child. After her stand in mother Rosaleen arrested and sent to the hospital for insulting three of the towns biggest racists, they flee to Tiburon, South Caroline in search of information about

When Lily finally decides to run away from T.Ray to Tiburon with Rosaleen, the housemaid, in the movie this act is shown more as her wanting to get away from him and not so much as her being curious about what really is in Tiburon, South Carolina. Also, while at the Boatwrights house Lily did not act in a curious manner, but was mostly doing what she could to blend in so she was accepted, and not kicked out. When T.Ray tells Lily that her mother left her as a child, Lily refuses to believe so. She knows that it was just another punishment he uses to torment her, and only seeks to find the real truth at the very end of the movie. When he tries to take her away from the Boatwrights, she asks him before he leaves, “Did you lie about my mother leaving me.” The quality of Lily’s curiosity is lost in the movie. Lily’s life is represented more as a drama than her being curious and seeking answers about her mother, and the black Madonna. Because the movie lacks the value of curiosity it takes away from what the true story

The Secret Life of Bees, written by Sue Monk Kidd, is a story that follows our narrator, Lily Melissa Owens, who describes events that took place in the summer she turned 14. The story begins in Sylvan, South Carolina, and focuses on Lily as a lonely teenager. Right from the start, we see that she suffers from an unhappy home life, due to struggle within the family and internal struggle within herself. As a young child of 4, Lily lost her mother in an unfortunate accident; during a fight between her parents, she got her hands on a gun and mistakenly shot her mother. The result has left her with a neglectful father, T. Ray, a surrogate mother Rosaleen, and enough guilt to last a lifetime. Furthermore, the rest of the book describes her escape from her father, along with Rosaleen, and her stay at the Boatwright sisters’ house. Throughout the novel, the author displays examples of a variety of literary terms. The four main terms most present are that of foreshadowing, symbolism, theme, and tone.