Lily Owens Quotes

Once Lily accepts what she has done and learns that her mother's death did not make her a bad person, her conflict can finally be resolved. As a result of resolving her conflict, she is able to mature because of the struggle, just like other people are able to grow and evolve from their own mistakes. This is evident when she admits "Before coming here, my whole life had been nothing but a hole where my mother should have been, and this hole had made me different, left me always aching for something, but never once did I think what he'd lost or how it might've changed him" (Kidd 293). Lily finally realizes that her mother's death has not only affected her, but also her father, T. Ray, and the calendar sisters. Through the course of Lily's struggle, Lily learns a lot about life and matures into a wiser

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

The character I admire from Sue Monk Kidd is Zachary Lincoln Taylor. I chose Zach Taylor because he expresses a lot of his feelings to Lily. I like his expressive personality because he makes me understand him more as a character. Zach seems to be a hard worker too because was explained “a main helper” from August in the story. Zach believed he can pursue his dreams in the novel too by telling Lily he wanted to be a lawyer while his Dad wanted him to be a professional football player. This dream that Zach had explained to Lily on wanting to be a lawyer was a very unlikely dream. The only existing African American lawyer at the time was Thurgood Marshall, the first African American lawyer during a time where blacks didn’t have many rights. Zach Taylor is the fastest learner in the Secret Life of Bees

“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.

In exactly fifty pages, Lily goes from, “My mother had left me. I hate her” (Kidd 251) to “… I have forgiven us both…” (Kidd 301). For the first thirteen of fourteen chapters, Lily hates her mother, and she makes this very clear. She directly tells August: “My mother had left me. I hate her” (Kidd 251). It’s not until August explains that Lily’s mother, Deborah, “... was practically skin and bone… And all she did was cry for a week,” that Lily starts to understand why she had to leave: she was being treated abusively by T. Ray (Kidd 252). Once Lily has this information, she begins the healing and forgiving process. This process is also helped along by Lily finally knowing the full truth about her mother’s mysterious death. The fact that Lily physically chases T. Ray as he’s about to leave the Boatwright’s house shows that she is ready to know, once and for all, the truth about her mother’s death. She is prepared for the possibility that she did in fact kill her mother. By allowing herself to know the truth, she forgives herself and her mother for leaving. She even says, “I guess I have forgiven us both, although sometimes in the night my dreams will take me back to the sadness, and I have to wake up and forgive us again” (Kidd 301). Progress in the process of Lily forgiving herself and her mom is clearly shown. Overall, she has condoned the actions of her mother, but still has little “flashbacks” or moments of weakness where she has to forgive

Since her mother died she has had to put up with her abusive father who doesn't really care about Lily. Having to not only deal with this but the fact that she doesn't have any friends in school doesn't really help. “People who think dying is the worst thing don’t know a thing about life.” Lily says this in the beginning of the novel. This is an important quote showing Lily’s bravery because Lily’s life has been profoundly affected by her mother’s death. This statement suggests that living with someone else’s death can be more painful than dying. She grew up without a mother and the taunting guiltiness that she killed her own mother. In some ways I share this quality with Lily. At times I can be a brave person but like everybody else I'm not always so brave. One time when I was brave was when I was first coming into the high school. I was always so nervous at just the thought of high school so when the big day came I was very anxious. I was brave enough to get through it all and now I'm more comfortable in the

The Secret Life Of Bee’s is authored by Sue Monk Kidd and has interesting themes throughout the book. The star of the show is Lily, she is the main character and takes us on her journey through her life to where she is now, in high school. With a full time angry dad fathering her, she and her maid/friend abandon ship. The two peas in a pod run off to Tiburon, South Carolina. Lily goes to prove that there is a great deal of resilience in the human spirit.

In the novel The Secret life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, the main character Lily uses the symbolism of bees to convey her transition from a prejudiced mindset against African Americans to one of acceptance. This novel shows the different attitudes of people towards African Americans in 1964. Lily goes through the journey of discovering new perspectives and finding that African Americans are not what people portray them to be.

Overall, it seems Lily spends her life in a constant state of regret, indecisiveness, contradictions, and conflict. All of this considered, one could interpret that Lily is paving her own path to destruction; however, the beginning of this path was entirely chance. Surely the death of her parents was a completely unrelated tragic accident, and as a human character she had no control over the other characters’ reactions to her. However, one can argue that her behavior

Right away in the book we get to see how Lily feels about not having a mother. "This is what I know about myself. She was all I wanted. And I took her away." (Kidd 8). This quote shows how Lily feels that she is missing something in her life, a mother. Lily acts like this all throughout the book, she feels bad for herself for not growing up with a mom. It has a huge impact on Lily’s personality. It makes her have extreme mood swings and depression. She doesn’t get to be like all of the ‘other girls’ that have mothers, and this really brings Lily down.

In Chapter 10, we can see that Lily is starting to become enmeshed in the Boatwright’s family and culture, as a result of the very traumatic events that unfold. To begin with, during the night when Lily is sleeping, she wakes up with a start, thinking about May. She first thought about how she had died, but then thought about all the good memories she had of May like she had known her for the majority of her life. On page 199 it says "I closed my eyes, all the best pictures of her came to me. I saw her corkscrew braids glistening in the sprinkler, her fingers arranging the graham-cracker crumbs working so hard on behalf of a single roach's life." This indicates that Lily felt like family to May and that she knew May and what type of person

“God deals us all different hands. How we play `em is up to us.” This is a quote from Jeanette Walls’ True-Life Novel Half Broke Horses. It displays a life lesson of Adam Casey to his daughter Lily. The quote originates from the time after their house gets washed away by a flood.

The Secret Life of Bees delineates an inspirational story in which the community, friendship and faith guide the human spirit to overcome anything. The story follows Lily Owens, a 14 year old girl who desperately wants to discover the cause of her mothers death. Her father T. Ray gives her no answers, which leads their maid, Rosaleen, to act as her guardian. Together, Lily and Rosaleen run away to Tiburon, South Carolina and find a welcoming community. It is in Tiburon that Lily learns many life lessons, including many about herself. In her novel The Secret Life of Bees, Sue Monk Kidd explores a theme of spiritual growth through Lily's search for home as well as a maternal figure.

The Secret Life of Bees The Secret Life of Bees is an inspirational novel about love, strength, and the hardship of racism. The author Sue Monk Kidd, portrays the life of a young, teenage girl, Lily Owens. She is hopeful in finding information about her passing mother. As Lily stays persistent and determined, she endures change and a new perspective in life.

The Importance of Family     In almost every circumstance, one relies on those who came before them. Whether it is a human, dog, or even a bee, loyalty is a key point in one’s life. Throughout The Secret Life of Bees, written by Sue Monk Kidd, the motif of bees is often mentioned as an important part of Lily’s life. Even when she travels away from home and moves in with the Calendar sisters, bees are an important part of her life. Her new mother figure, August Boatwright, explains to her the importance of a bee colony, and how bees make the world a better place.