Discrimination In The Secret Life Of Bees

Prejudice is something everyone has inside themselves. It can be buried deep or right beneath the surface, intentional or unintentional, big or small. An individual’s surroundings are a always factor in determining prejudice, but in the end, letting those preconceptions cloud their vision is up to them. The Secret Life of Bees delves deeper into this problem. The book takes place in the 1960’s, a time where racism against black men, women, and children runs rampant throughout America. The main character, Lily, is a young white girl who was raised in South Carolina. The book captures her journey of overcoming her own prejudices with the help of her friends and family. She was unknowingly bias due to growing up in a town where racism against blacks was normal, but realized the truth and changes after living with the Boatwright sisters. In The Secret Life Bees, Sue Monk Kidd uses the character of Lily to illustrate the struggles of discovering and overcoming her deep-rooted prejudice

‘The Secret Life of Bees’ by Sue Monk Kidd is a wonderful and beautifully written story. ‘The Secret Life of Bees’ includes loveable characters that each have their own unique personalities. ‘The Secret Life of Bees’ also includes mystery and love, which makes it enjoyable. Although it’s not realistic, it’s still a really good read because of how the characters grow and develop throughout. Erin Collazo Miller’s book review on ‘The Secret Life of Bees’ is right about all of these things mentioned.

"New beekeepers are told that the way to find the elusive queen is by first locating her circle of attendants." (57) This quote is at the beginning of chapter three and not only foreshadows many things to come, but within the quote, two of the novel’s main metaphors are mentioned, bees and the queen, which is referring to society and a mother figure. Although this quote is largely interpreted as a metaphor for Lily looking for a new queen or mother figure, and perhaps August being that mother, I believe that it has another meaning as well. I believe that the Black Madonna also serves as a “queen” and mother figure to all the women in “The Secret Life of Bees.”

In the fiction novel The Secret Life of Bees, written by Sue Monk Kidd, prejudice is abundant. In the book, a young girl named Lily learns of this prejudice through spending time with her caretaker, a black female, Rosaleen. There are many other themes shown throughout the text, but the main theme shown throughout the first 6 chapters is prejudice. The prejudice against black people becomes more and more apparent to main character Lily as she sees what her stand-in mother Rosaleen has to deal with. Prejudice is shown through the text with the nation’s reaction to the Civil Rights Act, Rosaleen’s altercation with white men, and Rosaleen’s unjust arrest.

The Secret Life of Bees Chapter 14 Essay In The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, a young girl named Lily struggles with growing up with only a harsh father and a housemaid while trying to find her own place in the world. At the age of four, Lily accidentally shoots her mother while trying to help her in a fight against Lily’s dad. Ever since that day, Lily has a difficult time trying to be a lady and trying to cope with her somewhat abusive father. One day, when Lily is fourteen, the housemaid Rosaleen is sent to jail for pouring dip spit on white men’s shoes but later gets assaulted by the men and is taken to the hospital where Lily goes to sneak her out.

The Secret Life of Bees begins in the town of Sylvan, South Carolina and tells the story of 14-year-old Lily Melissa Owens. She lives on a peach orchard with her neglectful and abusive father, T. Ray. They have Black maid named Rosaleen who is a companion and caretaker of Lily. The book opens with Lily's discovery of bees in her bedroom and the story of how she killed her mother. The eve before her birthday Lily sneaks out into the peach orchard to visit the box of her mother’s belongings which is buried there however before she can hide them T. Ray finds her and punishes her. The next day Rosaleen and Lily head into town where Rosaleen is arrested for pouring her bottle of tobacco spit on three white men. Lily breaks her out of prison and they begin hitchhiking toward Tiburon, SC, a town Lily had seen on the back of a picture of a black Virgin Mary which her mom had owned. They hitch a ride to Tiburon and once there, they buy lunch at a general store, and Lily sees a picture of the same Virgin Mary on a jar of honey. She asks the store owner where it came from and he gives her directions to the Boatwright house. They then meet the makers of the honey: August, May and June Boatwright, who are all black. Lily makes up a wild story about being recently orphaned. The sisters welcome Rosaleen and Lily into their home. They are then introduced to beekeeping and the Boatwright’s way of life. Lily learns more about the Black Madonna honey that the sisters make. She begins working

The Secret Life of Bees includes many issues that were going on during the 1960’s. Some issues stated were more sought after than others depending where in the country one was located. In the book, Lily lives in the heart of the south, South Carolina, which makes it easy to point out specific, debatable topics. With this, The Secret Life of Bees portrays many of the movements and issues prevalent in the 1960s like Gender Issues, the Women’s Rights Movement, and the Civil Rights movement.

Lily’s rebellion against her father illuminates the importance of the road of dependence to independence. As a bildungsroman, The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd, heavily focuses on the independence of an abused girl growing up in a time of feminine oppression and racial discrimination. For example, although Lily possesses a great ambition for literature, her father portrays contempt for it and thinks of college as “a waste of money for girls, even if they did, score the highest number a human being can get on their verbal aptitude test”(Kidd 15). Lily grudgingly respects her wish of her father to not read or bring up a conversation concerning education and tolerates an ill-bearing father. However, after Rosaleen and Lily become arrested,

The Secret Life of Bees is full of many magnificent characters who went through hard times together and united despite their different backgrounds. Sue Monk Kidd, the author, makes me particularly admire August Boatwright. August Boatwright is a beekeeper in Tiburon, South Carolina who lives with her two younger sisters, June and May Boatwright, in a pink house. August is my favorite character because she is kindhearted, hardworking and teaches good life lessons.

For the majority of Lily Owens life she lived unaware of most of the world's atrocities, mainly racism and prejudice. In The Secret Life of Bees, Lily grew up on a farm with her father T-Ray after she accidentally shot her mother as a small child. T-Ray was abusive to her and did not act like much of a father. She was very sheltered as she did not go out much or have many friends. Lily eventually ran away with her caretaker, Rosaleen.

In the novel, The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd the characters go through the struggles of discrimination and racism. In the beginning, Rosaleen offends some of the biggest racists in town and they end up running away to the calendar sisters, that neither of them knew anything about. In the end the become close friends and even end up living with them. Rosaleen is a major character in this novel. She has been Lily’s (the main character) nanny for since Lily was born. Throughout the novel, it shows how much closer they become. At the start she was awful at comforting others but by the end she is able to understand emotion is very good for Lily and the other characters.

It is hard to imagine a person who feels as though nobody loves them. A person who has no support system and constantly feels out of place. Lily strives to be accepted by someone, she feels unworthy of kindness and affection and does not understand the reason for her poor treatment. Throughout The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, Lily’s various relationships throughout the novel ultimately strengthen and shape Lily as a person, helping her to move forward from her past struggles.

In The Secret Life of Bees the most prominent theme is racism and prejudice because of the relation it has to the current world issues. The novel displays racism and prejudice very clearly so that the reader can imagine what it must have been like. The year that the novel takes place, 1964, is a major contributor to the validation of the way racism is portrayed. In the South, where the novel takes place, racism is still poignant today, while not as noticeable and less accepted as well as less admitted the reader can see why it would have been a problem back then. One can also see the segregation in society that is obvious to anyone and thoughtlessly accepted. These points provide vital information to understanding of the main characters, Rosaleen.

Over one hundred years ago, the Emancipation Proclamation was signed by Abraham Lincoln and in Martin Luther King’s words, “came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice,”(1). Today, we still face racism and the destruction that it creates, therefore racism is a hindrance towards a peaceful society, restricting equality for all.

With an imagination as big as the sky, anything is possible. Sue Monk Kidd ,born on August 12,1948, knew that she was born to be a writer. Growing close to her father who wrote and as he shared his stories, Kidd became instantly encouraged and started leaning towards a life in literature. As a teen living in the south, Kidd became influenced by, Henry David Thoreau's work and this only strengthened her love for literature. When Kidd turned thirty years of age she finally found her confidence in writing. Coming in strong with nonfiction literature and writing multiple books Kidd found that she was not challenging herself by only writing nonfiction, so Kidd decided to endeavor writing fiction stories. Given the courage to write fiction Kidd