Little Bee and Incendiaryby Chris Cleave Essay examples

The Secret Life of Bees is a tale in which the motherless main character, Lily, is trying to find the love that she needs and her family which she has yet to find. It is a story that explains the true meaning of what family is and the different types of love. Not only has Sue Monk Kidd successfully crafted a wondrous story with twists and turns, she has also used many different types of literary devices. Literary devices help a book seem more likable. These devices can also make a book into a page-turner.

‘The Secret Life of Bees’ includes loveable characters that each have their own unique personalities. In Erin Collazo Miller’s book review, he states that “’The Secret Life of Bees’ has loveable, well written characters.” Lily is determined to find out about her mother; even if it means going to Tiburon, South Carolina. In ‘The Secret Life of Bees’ it says, “I always promised myself one day, when I was grown up enough, I would take the bus over there. I wanted to go everyplace she had ever been.” (pg.15) Rosaleen is a strong and brave woman who doesn’t give up on what she wants. In the ‘The Secret Life of Bees’ it says, “Coming alongside the men, Rosaleen lifted her snuff jug, which was filled with black spit, and calmly poured across the tops of the men’s shoes…” (pg.32) Rosaleen is on her way to vote when these men give her a hard time. She however, doesn’t let them get in her way. She is brave to do something like that.

Authors tend to display their personalities and personal stories throughout their work. While the words on the paper may read one thing, the deeper connections and references hidden in the writing leads to even more nail-biting questions. Sue Monk Kidd was influenced to write her novel The Secret Life of Bees by the dreadful experiences she faced during her childhood, an early passion of literature, and finally her exploration of religious beliefs. Her childhood was most notably affected in the summer of 1964, when she witnessed public cruelty to blacks that, no doubt, haunted her for the rest of her life. Clearly, her first hand experiences that summer played an important role of setting it as a Civil Rights backdrop in The Secret Life of Bees.

In Chris Cleave’s dual-narrative novel, Little Bee, cruelty acts not only as a principal area of conflict for both protagonists, but also signifies a drive to make a change and become stronger individuals. The novel follows Sarah O’Rourke, a British editor and Little Bee, a young Nigerian refugee, as they form a unique bond after sharing a horrific encounter that turned both of their lives upside down. The conflict that Sarah faces leaves permanent results on her ordinary everyday life, forcing her to be strong for herself as well as for her son. Likewise, Little Bee tries to escape conflict, but learns that the scars that she has from her past encounters with cruelty will follow her and she must be strong enough to make a change. Together

The book “The Secret Life of Bees” is about a girl that lives in a time of racial segregation. That is one of the hardships she has to go through such as her abusive and neglectful father, and the thought that she killed her mother on accident. The setting of the book helps show what happens during a time of racial segregation a showed the internal problems that happened to Lily.

When the book begins Little Bee is a homeless, orphan refugee with little to no hope for life. She has no self confidence and lives in eternal fear of “the men” whom she believes could come and kill her at any point. She says:This is the discipline I learned: whenever I go into a new place, I work out how I would kill myself there. In case the men come suddenly, I make sure I am ready. (Cleave 47)

All of the bees were welcoming and kind, but the moment she proposed the idea of helping the city, looks of terror crossed their faces. They were terrified of the thought of leaving their home, the only place they believed they were safe. Beatrice couldn’t just let them decide to live in fear of the world outside their safe haven

In Chris Cleave’s novel, Little Bee, there are many characters with different personalities, ethics, and responses to the situations that come up in the book. The story is told from the two perspectives of Little Bee and Sarah. Little Bee is 16 year old refugee from Nigeria who comes to England to live with Sarah O’Rourke because the O’Rourke’s are the only people Little Bee knows from England. Sarah is the wife of Andrew and the mother of Charlie. She runs a magazine and has an affair with Lawrence. Andrew, Sarah’s late husband, was a newspaper columnist. After discovering his wife’s affair with Lawrence and living with the guilt of not being able to save a life of Little Bee’s sister by cutting off his finger, he falls into a depression and eventually hangs himself. Lawrence is Sarah’s lover. Like Sarah, he is married and has a family with kids. He works for the Home Office which handles immigration for the British Government and he met Sarah when she went in for an interview. The last character is Charlie, also referred to as “Batman”. He is the four year old son of Andrew and Sarah who refuses to take off his Batman costume because he is afraid that his father will die if he does. While Sarah and Little Bee each act selflessly and make it a priority to take care of one another, Lawrence behaves the most logically because even though he is seen as the antagonist for ruining Sarah’s marriage and for having a conflict with Little Bee, he acts out of fear that he could get

Little Bee is narrated by Little Bee and Sarah in alternating chapters. While throughout the novel Lawrence and Sarah fail to do the right thing of being considerate, Little Bee succeeds by telling her impactful story because she puts herself before others while being selfless.

Both Kitchen and The secret life of Bees are, among other things, a novel about parenting and how “mothering” can be done by a variety of people in one’s life. It is also a meditation on loneliness and the outsider perspective of a child who has lost parents early in life on the search of purpose.

She is attempting to escape the destruction in Nigeria, but encounters more in England. By escaping, she frees herself from the people overthrowing her community and who kill her family. She escapes the place but struggles to escape the effects, and grants others power over her mind. Living in fear and struggling to live at peace, Little Bee struggles to survive. As a refugee, Little Bee resides in a dehumanizing detention center, where her damaged mind worsens. She continuously thinks about what she will do if the “men”, the guards, return. Consequently, Little Bee has recurring suicidal thoughts: “[...]whenever I go into a new place, I work out how I would kill myself there. In case the men come suddenly, I make sure I am ready[…] I worked out how to kill myself in every single one of the situations a girl like me might get into in the detention center” (Little 47). Her past is so damaging that Little Bee finds it difficult to live her life. She plots her suicide if she ever encounters the guards again because of their actions in Nigeria. The destruction to her home and the violence of authority figures mentally disturbs Little Bee, and causes her to be cautious about everything she says and does. Refugees all over face mental destruction and similar hardships as Little

The first chapter of Little Bee, which was narrated by Little Bee, herself, is titled as “How I Wish” because the first thing she tells her readers was that she wanted to be a British pound coin. Little Bee wished to be a coin so that people would be pleased to see her; also, a coin can travel anywhere. The second chapter is titled as “Batman’s tragedy” because Sarah explains Andrew’s tragic death and how her child, Charlie, which is also known as Batman, handled the situation. It is a tragic moment for Batman because he failed to save his father from the “baddies” which in their situation was metaphorized as Andrew’s severe depression. The third chapter is titled as “Thanks or No Thanks, Yvette”. The four girls got released without their papers and their assigned

Everybody needs a mother figure in life. She is like the “manager” of her family. The mother provides security, love in a household, and acts as a role model for her children. A mother plays a vital role in her children’s lives. Mothers are supposed to lead one through life, helping with ups and downs. Losing a mother is not only losing someone children deeply care about, but the child loses a part of themselves as well. An emptiness begins to form in the kid’s life, that they desperately want to fill. This is exactly what happened to Lily in the novel The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. Lily loses her mother when she is very young, and as a result of that she has become self conscious, lost in life, and empty. She runs away with her nanny Rosaleen, not only wanting to get away from her abusive father, but wanting to find herself as well. She meets the Boatwrights sisters, and stays with them. Lily becomes closest with August, who out of the three sisters seems like she’s in charge. August becomes a new mother figure for Lily, and because of this Lily starts to find her purpose in life.. In the novel, Kidd shows how the main character Lily lacks security, fulfillment, and love, but finds guidance and warmth from the character August, which ultimately leads to Lily feeling like she belongs in the world and not feeling empty anymore.

In the novel ‘The secret life of bees’, the author Sue Monk Kidd aesthetically chooses bees as symbolism to act as models of human society. Kidd sparks the idea of realism within the reader and makes us as readers feel like we are living the story as the character Lily through the lessons she is taught that we were also taught. Lily catches a bee in a jar and then not long after she decides to open the lid to let the bee free, although she does this

“Honey Bees were Charley’s favorite thing about summertime. He’d sit outside and watch them, transfixed by their yellow bodies. Once I asked why he loved them so much; it was because they could fly and have all the honey they wanted. He always did have a sweet tooth. In the evening, he would run around the yard, flapping his arms like wings and buzzing. “Imma bee, mama. Look, look...imma bee,” he’d yell, laughter coating every word. One afternoon, he reached for one. Just held out his hand and grabbed it. Maybe he wanted to keep the bee, put it in a jar and watch it buzz all day long. Or maybe he thought that if he just touched one, he would finally transform. Just him, the sky, and the honey. As soon as his fist closed, the bee stung. I heard the yell from the kitchen and immediately ran to Charley’s aid. Charley was crisscrossed in the grass, crying and holding the bee in his swollen palm. “Why isn’t he moving, mama? He...he stopped flying.” I didn’t know what to say...I mean...who would? Little did I know that eventually Charley would become just like a bee. He would touch the lives of those around him and then leave - stinging their hearts.”