Literary Analysis Essay On The Secret Life Of Bees

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

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd is a book discussing the internal strife of a young white girl, in a very racist 1960’s south. The main character, Lily Owens, faces many problems she must overcome, including her personal dilemma of killing her own mother in an accident. Sue Monk Kidd accurately displays the irrationality of racism in the South during mid- 1960's not only by using beautiful language, but very thoroughly developed plot and character development. Kidd shows the irrationality of racism through the characters in her book, The Secret Life of Bees and shows that even during that time period, some unique people, were able to see beyond the heavy curtain of racism that separated people from each

August Boatwright, the fictional beekeeper in the bildungsroman, The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, insisted that “the world was really one big bee yard” (Kidd 92). Therefore, it is fitting that beehives represent a family unit or a community, of which love, symbolized by honey, is produced. In the beginning of the novel, a “queenless hive” serves as an accurate representation of the life of Lily Owens, the fourteen-year-old protagonist of the novel, whose mother died under peculiar circumstances when Lily was four, leaving her without a queen bee, who is considered “the unifying force of the community,” and in the hands of an abusive, neglectful, and unloving father, bittered from the absence of his wife (Kidd 1). Eventually, Lily

To deal with her cruel father and the lack of a mother, Kidd incorporates the Our Lady of Chains figure to symbolize a mother figure; something that had been missing throughout Lily’s life. Lily travels to Tiburon, South Carolina because she was looking for any mystical remains of her mother. Instead, she finds is the mystical statue. As Lily walked through the kitchen at night praying to Our Lady of Chains, she realized that she went from praying about the wellbeing of her mother, to thanking the mother that had been manifested to her over this emblematic journey. “I live in the hive of darkness, and you are my mother, I told her, You are the mother of thousands,” (164). At this point, Lily accepted the fact that throughout her trip she had found exactly what she had wanted her whole life, a mother. She found the picture of Black Mary which led her to the house of the most caring person she had ever met, August Boatwright. August introduced her to the Our Lady of Chains, and Lily began to have more faith in her everyday. Soon enough, more than enough faith was embedded into her to characterize Our Lady of Chains to be the holy symbol of hope and aspiration, to be the mother that had been absent for Lily’s

In the novel The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, the main character, Lily Owens struggles with the notion that she killed her mother and has to live with her abusive, neglectful father, T-Ray. Throughout, Lily searches for information about her mother and why she left her. Unexpectedly, she stumbles upon new mother figures that play an important role in changing Lily to the person she is in later. The typical sequence of a hero’s journey includes a departure, initiation and trials, and reintegration into society. By the end, Lily Owens developes into a more mature, independent young women after experiencing a difficult childhood.

“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.

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

This quote relates to lily because she lost her mother but the love for her from many other mother figures never ended. Lily always thought that she was never loved because of her cruel father but she had so many people with her like rosaline she was lily's first mother figure, she took care of her by showing love to her when her father was mean to her. The Other mother figures are august and may, june was not actually a mother figure for lily but instead she resembled lily in a way that made lily realize how she was, like when june tried to hide her feelings about neil, lily does the same for the black marry. August was a great mother figure because she gave time to lily to open up and tell the truth even though she knows that lily is

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.

“Look at me. I dive into one absurd thing after another, and here I am in the pink house.” (431). These are the words of Lily Owens in the novel The Secret Life of Bees which was written by Sue Monk Kidd. The story is about a fourteen-year-old girl named Lily who lives on a peach farm in South Carolina with her abusive father, T.Ray. Throughout the novel, Lily had shaped her life around her mother’s death. Searching for answers about her mother, Lily, and her mother-like figure Rosaleen escaped to Tiburon, South Carolina to find the Boatwright sisters. During this journey, Lily and Rosaleen develop deep relationships with the sisters. Staying with the sisters, Lily finds her answers about her mother. Whilst in search for knowledge about her mother, Lily unexpectedly finds a new place she can really

This quote shows that… EXPLANATION. Furthermore, this shows that throughout this book August Boatwright represents the best motherly figure. August exhibits multiple motherly traits such as caring for Lily, being a mentor for Lily, and always accepting Lily for who she is.

In the book “ The Secret Life Of Bees “ by Sue Monk Kidd , shows a lot a

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

Emanuel agrees in her paper “The archetypal mother: the Black Madonna in Sue Monk Kidd 's The Secret Life of Bees” saying that “[Kidd] speaks at length about a woman’s plight in both conventional society,”(Catherine B. Emanuel). August understands this progress of injustice. While talking to Lily about her life, August confesses that she did love a man. “I loved him enough. I just loved my freedom more”(146). This shows that August had to decide whether she wanted to have her freedom or to be married. Kidd writing about a black woman that choose a career over the traditional lifestyle of a women reinforce the notice that anyone can improve and innovate the world as much as white man. In the novel, August shows Lily that a woman can do anything a man can do by breaking from conventional ideas that a women can live a successful life without a man is normal. Laurie Grobman agreed in her essay in “Teaching Cross-Racial Texts: Cultural Theft in ‘The Secret Life of Bees” by saying that “August fits Levy’s description of the ‘model of female creativity, the repository of women 's history and the provider of mother enduring care,”(21). August is a role model to encourage women to break the mold of what a woman is supposed to be.

In the Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, the character Lily goes through a journey that changes her life. The journey Lily goes on is when she breaks Rosaleen from jail and they travel to Tiburon S.C because Lily believes friends of her mother live there and that they could tell her if her mother tried to leave her. Rosaleen and Lily were taken in by three beekeepers while they were in Tiburon. This journey changes Lily’s life because it gives her more insight on how colored people were treated and it also provided Lily more information about her mother before she died (she also found out her mum did leave her but she was coming back for her). It also changed the character’s life as staying with the beekeepers gave her more of a family