Secret Life Of Bees Book Report

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

Sue Monk Kidd is a writer from Southern Georgia. She is best known for her most influential piece of writing, The Secret Life of Bees, which has found its way into many classrooms across the country. Many of her fiction novels have tackled controversial and well known issues and themes of the South over the course of history.

In Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees, T. Ray is a frustrated and unloving character who makes an enormous impact on Lily’s character by making her feel self-conscious about herself and not worthy of being loved. T. Ray evokes hatred and disappointment in the reader by permitting this abusive and unfair treatment towards Lily. With his rough and furious exterior that is represented by grits on the hat, he is also proven to be filled with grief and hurt by his wife’s leaving and future death. To hide his heart-break and depression, he lashes out on Lily to build himself up.

Today I will be talking about the book named “The Secret Life of Bees,” written by Sue Monk Kidd. This book is about a young girl who has to deal with an abusive father and in return she runs away with her black babysitter to a beekeeper she believes may know the answers to her mothers dead. In this blog post I will be talking about the racial part of the book and discussing my opinions. The book mentions the race of the people many times because it is set in 1964, during the time in which many black people had to go through many deterrents.

Written by Sue Monk Kidd the novel "The Secret Life of Bees" traces the life of a 14 year old girl searching for love and care. The story begins in a peach farm in Sylvan, South Carolina but travels toward and ends in Tiburon, South Carolina. The city of Tiburon unleashes many truths that lily has wondered throughout her life. The town brings her what she has been longing for since she was a child.

In Sue Monk Kidd’s, The Secret Life of Bees, an open jar symbolizes Lily’s opportunity to escape T. Ray’s repression. For instance, after a fight with her father, Lily noticed the bee jar was empty and she “...heard a voice say, Lily Melissa Owens, your jar is open” (41). In this example, the jar represents her situation, and Lily is the bee that escaped. Previously, T. Ray restrained Lily like a jar imprisoning a bee. When the jar opened, a new opportunity presented itself and Lily grasped the chance at freedom. She decided to run away similarly to the bee leaving the jar. Soon after this realization, Lily escaped from T. Ray and the yoke he forced upon her. This author provides Lily with an alternative to enduring her father, thus advancing

Sue Monk Kidd portrays the time and place in the Secret Life of Bees by displaying Rosaleen working in the peach farms, then taken in to work in the house, giving the task of a housekeeper and Lily's nanny. Around ten years after, Lily turning 14, Rosaleen learns how to read and write her own name in order to turn in her ballot voting for J.F. Kennedy. Attempting to vote, Rosaleen and Lily were ambushed by a trio of white racists men, resulting in physical abuse of Rosaleen.When the police arrived, the white civilians claimed assault against Rosaleen, who is taken into jail charged with assault, theft(of a “church fan”), and abuse. Lily, caught up in between, also ended up in jail, to be later bailed out by her furious father. Determined, Lily breaks Rosaleen out of jail after finding out just how much Frank [he assaulted Rosaleen in jail so crudely that she had to go to the hospital] despised African Americans and fled to Tiburon, searching for clues about her mother Debera Owens. While finding shelter in a home with August, sister of May and June, May passes away. When the police questioned Lily's decision of staying with "colored people," he claimed that she didn't have

Kidd is the author of the Secret Life of Bees and her full name is Sue Monk Kidd. The way Kidd portray Rosaleen and Lily relationship in the book called “The Secret Life of Bees” is like a child and a caretaker but Rosaleen is like a mother figure for Lily. Even though they are not related by blood, Rosaleen and Lily care for each other. You know, as in the story it talks a bit about Rosaleen and Lily past. Plus the story gives some hints of what kind of relationship Lily and Rosaleen have.

For our summer reading project, we read a novel by Sue Monk Kidd titled, The Secret Life of Bees. Throughout the book, we learn about a young teen girl named Lily and her experiences of trying to escape an abusive father and free her nanny, Rosaleen. The author uses many clues to establish the setting and time period of the novel, which happened to be in the early 60's. The story starts in a farm home where Lily's dad has Rosaleen take care of Lily during the day as her nanny. When the Jim Crow Laws were in place, it was common to have an African American nanny in the household to help with the children and chores. Another prime example is when Rosaleen decides to go cast her vote which hasn't been allowed to her before, and when she does she is arrested for disrespecting white males. The author establishes the time period by drawing attention to the Civil Rights Acts and showing a huge contrast between how African Americans were treated versus whites and the conflicts between race rights in this time period. The author expresses this with officers and unfamiliar characters showing disrespect toward Rosaleen.

Even though June has a significant other in her life, she multiple times rejects her boyfriend’s hand in marriage, Neil. May throughout the story has panic attacks and starts to cry but with the help of her sisters, she is able to calm down. August is happy without having a male in her life, enjoying her time with her sisters and the bees. August shows Lily that the bees and her sisters make her happy and that she does not need another person in her life in order to be happy. With the Boatwright sisters, even though one of them has a boyfriend, with the power of love in the

Sue Monk Kidd bases the story, The Secret Life of Bees, in the south in 1964 by talking about how the Civil Rights Act had just been signed, and from the character Rosaleen, showing that black people could now vote as long as they were able to sign their name perfectly. This is one of the big ways that the Civil Rights Act influenced Lily because someone so close to her wanted to vote, and that caused many problems.

The Secret Life of Bees is written and directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood. The movie was made in 2008 and the book was made in 2001. The movie was placed in South Carolina during the Civil Rights era. This movie deals with racism, guilt and domestic abuse. Bythewood talks about love between colored people, and the civil rights movement becoming a law by President Lyndon B. Johnson. The Secret Life of bees explores diversity in a positive way by revealing the racism of the time, by showing the interracial love of a couple, and representing historical improvements of race relations.

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.

When talking about quest, a person is referring to five aspects. These five aspects are; (a) a quester, (b) a place to go, (c) a stated reason to go there, (d) challenges and trials, (e) the real reason to go. Nearly every story revolves around the idea of quest. It is the structure of most stories. The Seret Life of Bees is a book that uses quest incredibly well. (a) The quester is a teenage girl named Lily Owens who doesn't get along with her father and has no mother because she accidentally shot her when she was younger. As the story progresses, Lily's "stand-in mother", Rosaleen, gets into some trouble. Lily decides that they need to leave town and travel to Tiburon, South Carolina, the

The three books, The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, The Color Purple by Alice Walker, and Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston were all books that made me think deeper into the importance of not displaying stereotypes, prejudices, and racism. I learned a lot while reading these books. First, that everyone can find their own family feeling, despite having one. In The Secret Life of Bees, Lily doesn’t have a great relationship with her father, and no relationship at all with her mother. She finds a way to create her own version of a family by running away with Rosaleen and later finding herself with May, June, and August. Although, the idea of running away from home isn’t the ideal message or theme of the book; Lily finding