Little Bee By Chris Cleave

(TS) In Sue Monk Kidd’s novel The Secret Life of Bees, Lily Owens does not have an empathetic relationship with her parents as a result of the loss of her mother and an abusive father; however, Lily gains a new family figure, August Boatwright, who shows her the true empathy that is present between a parent and their child. (PS) Lily Owens’s absence of a mother and a “real” father causes Lily not to have a relationship with her parents that is filled with affection for one another. (SS) When Lily lost her mother, Deborah Fontell, she was told that she had shot and killed Deborah. (SS) Lily would say, “I would meet her saying, ‘Mother forgive. Please forgive,’” and she would kiss my skin till I grew chapped and tell me I was not to blame”

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.

In the novel The Secret Life of Bees (2001), Sue Kidd creates a character, Terrence Ray Owens, that serves as the epitome of internal conflict. Kidd is able to show Terrence’s internal conflict through through a flashback from Lily’s friend August, and a series of violent actions inflicted on his daughter Lily. Kidd’s purpose in this novel is to display the ramifications of a broken home dynamic, in order to show how forgiveness to oneself and others is truly the first step to finding happiness.

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.

As a student enters the gym doors of Smith-Cotton they can see various trophies from our athletic teams, along with our JROTC National Championship banners that hang up from the walls. One can see by the quality of our gym that our sports are a main part of our school, but as one wonders on into the hallways of our school, they can see how dull they are. By the plainness of the walls, there seems to be no life, in the JROTC hallway you see the trophy cabinet full of multiple national trophies and as you venture on you get to see images of what these teams do, along with the bulletin board that shows newspaper articles of the success of the program. But as you continue to walk toward the other side of the classroom, one can only see some bulletin boards that do not have many things on them except for some advertising. Just by observing this, a new student can see that our school has a great deal to do with sports, but what they cannot see is how well this school performs academically. As we walk down the halls you rarely see a student’s work displayed. So one can assume what James Coleman thinks to be correct, that “altogether, the trophy case would suggest to the innocent visitor that he was entering an athletic club, not an educational institution." This is a dilemma among many schools that is sometime not dealt with adequately.

Alison Bechdel’s memoir, Fun Home, is a compelling narrative in which Bechdel takes the reader through her life and gives insight into her relationship and the complex lifestyle her closeted homosexual father, Bruce Bechdel. However, her serious topic is told through the narrative of comics, images that literally put the readers into the moments of her life with her. Even though, the graphic images provide visual insight, Bechdel makes a conscious decision to include a multitude of literary allusions because, as Bechdel describes, “I employ these allusions to James and Fitzgerald not only as descriptive devices, but because my parent’s are most real to me in fictional terms.” (Bechdel, Page 67) Her continued use of literary allusions can be seen as an insight to her life. The particular works of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald and Oscar Wilde’s plays An Ideal Husband and The Importance of Being Ernest because of their content concerning facades and the lengths one person goes through to keep a part of their identity or life a secret. TRANSITION Bruce Bechdel was the master of secrecy, hiding a part of his sexuality behind his heterosexual marriage in order to keep his idea of an acceptable livelihood. It is clear that Bruce Bechdel had a few infidelities with males throughout Bechdel’s childhood, infidelities that she did not know until later in life. This creates a whole new perceptive for Bechdel. The father who she thought as a controlling, stern, literary fein

When looking at the many pieces of artwork that were in the Georgia Museum of Art, Playground by Paul Cadmus was the only one that was able to fully grasp my attention and make me want to come back to view it. The piece had many characters performing different actions and poses, each individual with their own characteristics. The first thing that I noticed in the piece is a young, white male with bleach-washed hair in the foreground. The pants that he is wearing are unbuttoned and slightly below his waist. The boy’s arms are positioned behind him bending back with his hands underneath his undergarments. He stares back at the viewer with a blank look on his face. Scattered on the ground, trash and crumpled pieces of newspaper can be found on the ground. Behind the young man, there is another man with black hair and a ripped shirt, his chest exposed and his back against a metal fence. He holds a cigarette in his left hand and has his right hand in his pocket

Family can be defined as individuals who are related by blood, yet it is more so about our ability to care for a person or people and for them to care for us as well. This same theme is demonstrated by many literary texts throughout history. One, exemplary novel is The Secret Life of Bees. Within the book, there are many exchanges between characters that stresses the importance of family and how there are no limits when it comes to choosing who you consider family and who you do not consider family. The relationships that structure the storyline prove this life lesson to be true. The story follows the main character, Lily. Lily has experienced many trials in her early years of life. While these trials do not define Lily, they certainly

The female characters’ journey of empowerment has undergone different stages. In their quest for healing tools that can recover their maternal absence, the women have been looking for images that replace the mother’s face. In Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees, the readers are exposed to a new type of identity search; that is to say Kidd’s female characters are depicted as the orphans who lack both paternal and maternal love. In the case of Lily, this lack starts in her early stage of life as she has been left almost alone with an abusive father who devotes all his care to his dog.

experienced. For example, when Sarah and Andrew attempt to bribe the killers into sparing the girls, the leader responds: “‘You think I care bout that stuff?... You don’t see this hole in my neck? I am dead in two days. You think I care about money and medicine?’” (113). Nevertheless, while his men rape Nkiruka, Little Bee notes that the leader “[is] far off from his men”’ (131). Although the leader allows for cruelty to occur, his actions suggest that he disagrees with the practices he condones. His knowledge of his imminent death leads him to seek revenge for the racism he has experienced all his life, and when he does not receive that revenge, Little Bee’s sister becomes his victim instead of Andrew. However, his lack of participation in Nikiruka’s torture suggests that he does not particularly enjoy inflicting pain on others; his brutality likely stems from his inevitable death, caused by his position of power. Nonetheless, because of the injuries and mental trauma the leader of the killers suffers, caused by power received from the corrupt oil companies, he allows his men to rape and murder a teenage girl. In addition, Sarah and Charlie end up hurt because of the depression Andrew experiences, caused by his regret over a choice he made with undeserved power. As Lawrence says, because “‘he was clinically depressed, it was very hard

Sarah cut her finger off for Little Bee freedom she basically sacrificed her life for Little Bee. Which is why Little Bee dignity for Sarah and Charlie is very outstanding. No matter what Little Bee went through and no matter how badly scar she was from past experience she still showed her respect for herself and others. Little Bee respected herself enough to hide her feminism from the men. She didn't want that kind of disrespectful attention. The article talks about how it is better to cover up the truth then to reveal it . Little Bee wanted to cover herself up cause she knew the men would try and throw themselves onto her. No matter what you go through in life you can survive with dignity.

Little Bee doesn’t feel to belong anywhere. Her head tells her that she’s not British because she’s white but she’s not Nigerian because she talks like Queen of England. Book is asking from the reader questions as the story progresses when we are looking from the point of view of Little Bee. Style she uses is that in some sense she breaks the fourth wall in genius way - by talking to reader and asking them questions that intend to make them think about the situations deeper. One can see this right from the beginning of the novel where Little Bee is stating, “- but you would not be sad because you would be eating a cinnamon bun, or drinking a cold Coca Cola…”

In Chris Cleave’s Little Bee and Incendiary, the characters Little Bee and the unnamed narrator respectively, undergo a traumatic experience in the early stages of the books. Little Bee is confined in an immigration detention center upon her arrival in England for not having legal documents to prove her age. Meanwhile, the unnamed narrator has her life blown apart by a terrorist attack that kills her husband and four year old son. Both characters lose the hope and faith in their world and adjust to their new lives accordingly. Little Bee disguises herself physically, verbally, and legally in order to stay safe from the dangers of her new life. The narrator combats her emotional breakdown by helping to investigate the instigator behind the

Little Bee, by Chris Cleve, is a novel that explores unthinkable evil, but simultaneously celebrates its characters in their ability to transcend all that weighs them down, including their pasts, their secrets, and their flaws. For the character of Little Bee, identity is inescapably tied to ethnicity, nationality, gender, race, and class. A representative passage of the book that explores Little Bee’s point of view (both its unceasing optimism and stark realism) occurs in the final chapter: Little Bee is awoken from a good dream, and then comes the ominous first sentence, “There is a moment when you wake up from dreaming in the hot sun, a moment outside time when you do not know what you are” (Cleave 258). Little Bee is questioning her