How Does The Secret Life Of Bees Show The Power Of A Religious Figure

Sue Monk Kidd’s novel The Secret Life of Bees tells the story of a 14-year-old white girl, Lily Owens, whose life has been shaped around the blurred memory of her mother's death. Lily meets new people and they help her realize who she is and how the world is around her. Throughout the novel Kidd uses Lily’s various situations to express the theme. Kidd uses imagery, symbolism and similes to express the overall theme which is forgiveness and love.

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd features an allusion at the start of each chapter, each one mentioning a queen bee. Throughout the exposition, it is believed the queen bee mentioned would be a symbol for Lily's mother, but as the plot progresses, many more motherly figures begin to fit into this description of queen bee. Our Lady of Chains can be seen as the queen bee of the novel, as the Boatwright sisters, Rosaleen, and Lily can all relate to her in some form. They are all trying to escape from something, the Boatwright sisters and Rosaleen are trying to escape the harsh rasicm seen in this time period and Lily is attempting to escape her past. The allusion in chapter six writes, "The queen must produce some substance that attracts

"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.”

Rosa Parks. Emmett Till. Martin Luther King Jr. All three of these people played a significant role in the creation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This law was just passed when Lily Owens, a fair-skinned girl from South Carolina, turned 14. But as she found out, not everybody will abide by it. When one of the workers from her father’s peach farm, Rosaleen, tries to register to vote, she gets in trouble with the biggest white supremacist in town. When Lily and Rosaleen run away, they find safety in a beekeeper’s house in Tiburon. There, she’ll discover things she never knew about her past, herself, and what it means to be loved. Just as Lily uncovered layers of her life, there are also many layers to the novel as a whole. The surface, thematic, symbolic, historical, religious, and literary layers all add important insight into the characters and plot of the story that we might have not seen otherwise. In this essay, all be explaining how the symbolic, thematic, and religious layers affected Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees.

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. In order to help incorporate the story’s title into the story, the author has written epigraphs, that are about bees, for every chapter in the book. Chapter two’s epigraph says “ On leaving the old nest, the swarm normally flies only a few metres and settles. Scout bees look for a suitable place to start the new colony. Eventually, one location wins favor and the whole swarm takes to the air”(34). This epigraph parallels the story because of the similarities in how bees move on and look for somewhere to start their new lives and how Lily and Rosaleen try to start their new

In The Secret Life of Bees, author Sue Monk Kidd, portrays the transformation of Lily Owens from a child burdened with the guilt of her mother's death to a strong and confident young woman, as a result of living with May, Rosaleen, and August. Lily, burdened with the guilt of her mother's death becomes terrified of her father, T. Ray. August and May guide Lily’s growth to a life of faith and devotion while Rosaleen remains as Lily’s constant companion. As Lily finds her true identity she transforms into a strong and confident young woman which helps her face the world and all of its challenges.

n the novel, The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, Lily a 14 year old girl is abused by her father and runs away. Throughout Lily's life she was sheltered from blacks and always thought of them as a lower class in society and her in a higher class because of her skin color. As a result she has limited respect for blacks. There are many motifs in this book that change the mindset of Lily, one of which is the Virgin Mary. The symbol the Virgin Mary is a huge impact on Lily's growth and development.

In the novel, The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd, a fourteen-year-old girl Lily Owens along with her black housekeeper Rosaleen, escape to a town in South Carolina called Tiburon after Rosaleen got thrown into prison after insulting a group of racists. There, they meet a trio of black beekeeping sisters who take them in and teach Lily about beekeeping. Through these experiences, Lily has discovered many things. But these could not be shown to her without three influentials in her life. The three characters are Deborah Fontanel, Lily’s mother, The Black Mary Statue, a statue that symbolizes strength, and guidance for blacks and August Boatwright, a middle aged black beekeeper who comforts and guides Lily.

The Secret Life of Bees: Changing Characters The Secret Life of Bees is an interesting story with many different characters interacting with each other. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd is a fictional book written about a young girl named Lily Owens. In the summer of 1964 in Sylvan, South Carolina, a girl named Lily Owens escapes from her abusive father, T. Ray after she shot her mother when she was four. When running away,she searches for the truth about her mother and escapes to Tiburon, South Carolina to the Boatwright sisters.

This is one of the many things about August Boatwright that proves her to be a very important and influential character in the novel, through her way of understanding Lily without her even telling her. In the book “The Secret Life of Bees”, by Sue Monk Kidd, the main character Lily Owens, experiences many influences from different characters in the story. Some of those may have been good influences, however some could have also been bad. One of those influences stands out from the rest and has the biggest impact on Lily. In the story, August Boatwright has the largest influence on Lily.

Because of this, Lily needs someone to guide her as she is growing up. The only person Lily could talk to about her life, especially personal things, was her Black caregiver, Rosaleen. This was Lily’s first motherly figure besides her own mother. After Lily ventured out to Tiburon, SC, she established strong relationships with August, May, and June Boatwright. These women took Lily in and provide many things for her, but August Boatwright has supported Lily the most since they first met. She helps to guide Lily as another motherly figure in her life. As well as supplying for Lily, the Boatwright sisters introduced The Black Madonna to Lily. After days of learning the importance of The Black Madonna to the sisters, Lily initiates that the Madonna is a mother to her and a mother to

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd is a book about a girl named Lily and the troubles she faces. The story takes place in the 1960’s and during that time period there was a lot of racism and segregation going on especially in the southern part of the United States. This book does a great job of portraying the conflicts each of the characters go through. The three main conflicts are Man versus Man, Man versus himself, and Man versus society. One of the very first conflicts introduced in the book is man versus man.

In “The Secret Life of Bees” by Sue Monk Kidd we see a young troubled Lily Owens who longs for answers about her mother and that maternal love which she never received. Lily blossoms from a fragile hurt little girl into and strong and independent young woman with the help of the Boatwright sisters. The major themes shown throughout the book are a longing for maternal love and the power and strength of female community.

As Lily adjusted to her life with the Boatwright sister’s, and her job as a beekeeper she developed faith in the power of the beehives. The predictability and the complexity of their lifecycle gave her comfort as well as a renewal of her faith in life. The bees taught her a lot, and as a result she gave them her respect. At the end of the book Lily had to use her faith to believe in herself.

When one looks up the definition for family it says a group consisting of parents and children living together in a household. Well August is the parent and June, Rosaleen, May, and Lily are all the children. We have a family right here. Motherhood was a motif that helped play into the theme of family in this book. Lily considers Rosaleen as a mother, yet Rosaleen is not as sophisticated as she wants a mother to be. Rosaleen is the person to help Lily when she is hurt, who defends Lily against her father, has the courage and strength to go and vote and is a motherly figure to Lily. August can be looked at as a mother too. She gives Lily wise wisdom, she is there for Lily through the pain about her mother, she teaches her about beekeeping, something her mother enjoyed too, she teaches her about religion, and the courage to be a leader. Lastly, her mother, Deborah is her real mother. She helps Lily realize that nobody is perfect and even mothers who love their kids need the courage to carry on. Lily learns from all these important figures that she just needs to be the best person she can be from all the wisdom and courage all these mothers help Lily understand. “I accidently killed her,” I said staring straight into her eyes. “Listen to me now,” said August, tilting my chin to her face. “That’s a terrible, terrible thing for you to live with. But you’re not unlovable. Even if you did accidently kill