Interviewer: How did you know Lily’s mother?
August: I was a housekeeper for Deborah. I used to take care of her everyday. I've heard about T. Ray from her mother, but I have never seen him in person. Deborah told me all about him. Then when Lily told me that she killed her mother, I couldn’t imagine dealing with that for the rest of her life. I told her that I love her and everyone loves her, just as much as her mother loved her. Her mother loved everyone. I gave Deborah a picture of black Mary a little bit before she died, and that is how Lily found us. She looked through her photo album. That is where Deborah kept all of her things.
Interviewer: How did you decide that you wanted Lily to stay at your house and let you help out with the bees in the first place?
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Lily looked like Deborah when she was younger and right away I had knew why she had came. She had came because she wanted to know about her mother, and I knew that I had to tell her at some point about what happened. So I just let her stay. She needed to know the truth, and that is what I was going to tell her, but I didn’t want to talk about her mother too soon. That would get a better risk of her running away like what she did with T. Ray.
Interviewer: What do you think Lily learned by staying with you and your sisters?
August: I believe that Lily learned that sometimes you have to forgive things in life to get past hard times. She couldn’t forgive herself enough for killing her mother, and that is why she ran away. She needed to know the truth. Once she forgave herself, her whole life had changed.
Interviewer: How did you feel about the death of May? How did you feel about her actions and emotions that lead to her death?
DocViewer Page of 3 Zoom Pages In the beginning of the book Lily’s relationship with her parents was not really good , she really did not know her mother all she knew was the horrifying confusing accident that happened when she was only four years old. All Lily remembered about her mother was when her mother was fighting with T. Ray and she was packing all of her clothes , going in and out of the closest and seeing T.Ray yelling at her mom. Lily also remembered that she saw a gun on the floor and Lily grabbed it and shot her mother on accident.
Lily saw her mother as a bad person for abandoning her. August explains to Lily that her mother made a mistake of leaving her with T.Ray. She also tells Lily that her mother tried to fix it be returning to get her. This conversation is an important factor when Lily learns to forgive her mother and herself.
Lily feels alone in this world. She is ostracized at school, treated with an absence of love and lives day to day knowing that she has committed irreversible acts. When she thinks about her mother all of these complications melt away in the warm allure she feels.
Ray looked at Lily he realized that he couldn't stand her anymore because she looked too much like Deborah, which is when August offers him a way out of the uncomfortable situation. On page 298 she said "Mr. Owens, you would be doing Lily and the rest of us a favor by leaving her here...We love Lily, and we'll take care of her I promise you that. We'll start her in school here and keep her straight." August gives T. Ray a way out of taking care of his daughter and having to be reminded of Deborah and it also solves the major conflict of whether Lily and Rosaleen are going to have to back to Sylvan and stay with T. Ray or whether she will be able to stay with the Boatwrights. Adding on, just as T. Ray is about to leave Lily runs up to him, and asks him what really happened that day when her mother died and on page 299 it states "You didn't mean it, but it was you...Maybe he was telling me the truth, but you could never know a hundred percent with T. Ray." This also is a very important part of the novel because Lily realizes she lost her real mother but when she looks at the porch she has 8 other mothers. On page 302 it states "All these mothers. I have more mothers than any eight girls off the street." This quote is very important because it finally dawns on Lily that she isn't alone, and she doesn't just have one mother but eight of them. Furthermore, another conflict that is resolved, is about Lily breaking Rosaleen out of jail. On page 301 it states "He says they
Through use of indirect characterization, Lily’s words and actions reveal a pivotal part of her character: her clever intelligence. This first becomes evident after her African American friend, Rosaleen, spills a cup of her snuff spit on the shoes of a racist white man that was provoking her. The minister at her church is
T. Ray breaks the news that Lily’s mom had left Lily with him and had come back to pack up her stuff when the big argument between he and Lily’s mom happened. At that point, Lily has enough of T. Ray, so she starts to have a mini-mental breakdown. Amidst the chaos going on inside her mind, she hears a voice say, “Lily Melissa Owens, your jar is open” (41). That little voice means all the difference in the world to Lily. To Lily, it is as if her mother is saying to leave T. Ray and start a new life. Right then she knows that she has to
While Lily was at August’s she experienced freedom, love, more motherly love, death, fear, and a rollercoaster of emotions. By
When lily went to South Carolina she goes to a lady named August. August is very artifice. Lily stays at her honey house for several months with her aunt Rooselyn. As she lives there she goes through many adventures and meets a ton of new people. She meets her true love Zach and two sister of August named May and June. She finds out a lot about her mother. She finds out that her mother Deborah stayed at the same honey house. She also finds out that her mother ran away from T-Ray when he was abusive. At the end T-Ray finds Lily at Augusts house and he threatens her that she has to come back home with him. Lily fights and eventually convinces T-Ray that she is better off with August and forgives him.
As August is giving Lily a box full of items that were once owned by her mother, she hands Lily a silver picture frame with a picture of her mother happily feeding her. August knows that Lily is feeling like she is unloved and tries to find things that would reignite the belief of her mother's love. This is the final piece of information that Lily needs to truly prove to herself that her mother loved her and cared about her. Because of this information that August shares, Lily finally believes that her mother really did love her, and is able to deal with herself again.
She was there to help Lily get through her struggles, and showed Lily how to love and be loved. One of the reasons August has had the biggest impact on Lily’s growth and development is because she helped Lily get through rough times. This
Lily starts off stuck living in an unloving, abusive household and decides to free herself from the negative atmosphere that she had been living in her whole life. Lily is perpetually abused by her father. He forces her to kneel on Martha White's, gets exasperated every time she speaks, and yells at her for no reason. Lily is not the only one noticing the terrible treatment, Rosaleen does too. Once after Lily had to kneel on the Martha White's Rosaleen said to her, “Look at you, child. Look what he’s done to you” (Kidd 25). Noticing the unloving treatment Lily gets, Rosaleen knew that their household was demoralizing place for Lily to be in, which is why she didn’t question when Lily when she later runs away. Lily one day realizes she needs to do something about her horrible life at home. While sitting in her room she hears a voice in her
Not only is August caring and a good mentor, but she is also very accepting of Lily for who she is. Since the beginning of the book, August has always been an inviting and accepting character. August meet Lily when she showed up at her house, instead of turning her away August allow Lily to stay with them. “Well, you can stay here till you figure out what to do. We can’t have you living on the side of the road.”( Kidd ) August was just told that Lily and Rosaleen had run away from home. August welcomes them into her home and allows them to stay with her. As the book goes on many lies about Lily’s past are told. August knows that Lily is lying but never presses. When it finally comes time for the truth to be told, August never yelled, she just listened. When Lily is telling August about all of the lies she
When we first meet the character of August Boatwright, she has already grown into who she is going to be for the most part. August loved to learn, soaking up books and miscellaneous factd. Although there was great racial tension between blacks and whites at this time, August did not let that deter her from taking in Lily. She knew it was the right thing to do. It is true that she knew Lily was Deborah’s daughter as soon as she saw her.
Luckily for Lily, she comes upon the Boatwright sisters once she reaches Tiburon. Because of the fact Lily does not have anyone to share her love with, she is compelled to stay and live with the Boatwrights. At one point in the novel, Lily and August are having a conversation when August asks Lily “What else do you love Lily?”(Kidd 39). Lily then thinks to herself, “No one had ever asked me that before. What did I love? Right off the bat I wanted to say that I loved the picture of my mother…but I had to swallow that back”(39). Lily does not feel comfortable enough yet that she says, “ I love writing poems, just give me something to write, and I’ll love it” despite the fact that Lily really loves August (39). She loves August so much that she would rather stay in Tiburon with the Boatwrights than be with her own father T. Ray. The loss of Deborah results in Lily going to obtain love somewhere other than her own home. This is also why Lily takes Rosaleen with her. Rosaleen is a black nanny who used to work on T. Ray’s farm. She has been there for Lily in the past but she cannot always be there one hundred percent because of her race. Due to Deborah’s death, Lily does not have a mother figure, however, he journey to Tiburon with Rosaleen proves to be a success as she finds the Boatwrights and strengthens her relationship with her nanny, Rosaleen.
Deborah affects how Lily develops as a person and the action of the novella from beyond the grave. Lily struggles with dealing with the guilt of her mother’s death. “This is what I know about myself. She was all I wanted. And I took her away” (8).