Secret Life Of Bees By Sue Monk Kidd

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

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

In addition, after Lily’s liberation from T. Ray, another character pushed Lily to make a choice without even saying a word to her and that character was Lily’s mother, Deborah, who was dead and yet she still guided Lily to her next destination. Deborah’s largest contribution to Lily’s life was leaving behind a trail of love for Lily to follow, giving Lily someplace to go when she had no home. Lily immediately knows where to go after leaving her father's trammel, for she finds a picture of Deborah in Tiburon, South Carolina. Lily’s eagerness to learn more about her mother urges her to travel to Tiburon. Lily reveals her desperation on finding out more about her mother’s love towards her when she said, “ Well, think about it. She must have been there some time in her life to have owned this picture. And if she was, a person might remember her, you never know” (Kidd 51). Lily’s voice held a sense of hope as she believed that there was something in

In society today there are still forms of segregation prevalent to the eye. Whether it’s in workplaces, schools, etc. it is still seen today. Of course, sometimes no one means to self- segregate himself or herself, sometimes it may even be subconscious. It is not intended to be mean spirited or subjective to anyone, it simply just happens. Even though people may not realize it within themselves, people still hold on to racist beliefs.

When a parent dies, any child will cling to the other parent for emotional support and comfort for dealing with such a loss. In Lily’s case, she wanted her fathers support more than anything but he was cold, abusive, and stuck in the past, that he wasn’t able to give her anything except for take his anger out on her, when she disobeyed him. Although if someone does not get that support from the other parent, and if someone else is there that is understanding and kind, its amazing to see how much you can start to really rely on them and grow a close relationship. When Lily deals with the loss of her mother and the poor treatment of her father, she doesn’t know what to do with herself, she has a load of all different kind of emotions, and it really harms her well-being. Lily deals with guilt because she has visuals that she was the one that killed her mother, and on top of that she has her father telling her that her mother left her and she just abandoned her, making Lily feel unimportant and then at the same time guilt. Rosaleen is the closest role model that Lily has for a mother, Rosaleen cares and sticks up for Lily but Lily doesn’t really have the mother-daughter connection with her. Although Rosaleen provides comfort for Lily, she helps her with her father and in return Lily defends Rosaleen as well as save her life from the hospital after she got beaten.

Haunted by the her own memories, Lily Owens finds comfort in the humming of the bees. In the novel, The Secret Life of Bees, Sue Monk Kidd writes about the life of young girl whose spontaneous decisions lead her to her mother’s past. Lily’s life has revolved around the lack of a mother. Her father, T. Ray, is a harsh and unloving peach farmer who punishes Lily unreasonably and does not fulfil his father like position. Lily’s adventure begins after catching a few bees in a jar. She empathizes with them as they are stuck and alone, something she understands all too well. On the day of her birthday, Lily and her negro nanny, Rosaleen, go out into town to register for voting. Rosaleen and Lily are on their way when a group of white men begin to harass Rosaleen and degrade her for being a negro. Rosaleen pours her spit jug on the shoes of the man and is given no mercy when she is beaten. With Rosaleen ending up in jail, Lily returns to the comfort of the bees once again. As she opens the jar and watches the bees escape, Lily follows suit and flees from home. She breaks Rosaleen out of the hospital and they hitchhike their way to Tiburon, South Carolina. Lily believes that her mother, Deborah, had once visited Tiburon and where she had obtained a picture of a Black Madonna. Lily has spent her whole life looking for new information and connections between herself and her mother. With luck and fate on her side, Lily finds the home of the Boatwright sisters, the creators of the Black

Lily Owens, is a white 14 year old girl living in the south during the 60’s. She is the main character in “The Secret Life Of Bees”, Lily has grown up without a mother, Her perspectives on things are a lot different because of this. Lily is a very complex, and difficult character to understand.

Sue Monk Kidd alludes to the separation of black musical culture from white culture in her novel, The Secret Life of Bees, when comparing Elvis and Fats Domino to Miles Davis. This allusion helps clarify Lily’s provincial views and her limited knowledge of black culture. Although she tries to relate her understanding of music to Zach’s, Lily must realize that they share little in common in that field.

Secret Life of Bees Essay Growing up changes you in more ways than you realize. It can be a good change like new privileges. It could be bad things like more responsibility. In the book The Secret Life of Bees all changes are experienced.

n the novel, The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, Lily a 14 year old girl is abused by her father and runs away. Throughout Lily's life she was sheltered from blacks and always thought of them as a lower class in society and her in a higher class because of her skin color. As a result she has limited respect for blacks. There are many motifs in this book that change the mindset of Lily, one of which is the Virgin Mary. The symbol the Virgin Mary is a huge impact on Lily's growth and development.

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.

We learn that she had accidentally killed her mother at the age of four, and has been made to feel guilty and unworthy of love. The story starts to develop when she helps her black babysitter, Rosaleen escape from prison. Lily loved Rosaleen like a mother. They use this opportunity to escape from Sylvan and her unhappy home. As Lily develops over the course of the story, we can see and learn about Lily’s many unique

Lily longed for love and attention, something her father and caregiver, Rosaleen couldn't seem to give her. The reality was that Lily lived in a time that segregation was intact and John Fitzgerald Kennedy was trying to launch rockets to the moon. The author used symbolism, for example space, to show the lost nature of Lily’s character. “Fourteen and my life went spinning off into a whole new orbit” (1). Lost in thought, Lily always was thinking about what would happen if her mother was around. She was forced to follow her father's orders or she would be hit or shoved. This made her want to create as much distance between her and her father as possible. On the back of her mother's picture it said Tiburon, South Carolina. Maybe in Tiburon she could have a better life and bring her closer to her mother? Lily and Rosaleen hatched a plan to escape. As they left town they were confronted by a group of white men. Rosaleen spat on their shoes in protest of her rights. Then she was beaten up and sent to jail. T. Ray (Lily’s father) was furious! At this pivotal moment Lily knew she must leave. Confidence grew throughout Lily, she got Rosaleen out of the hospital and left to Tiburon. Before she left she gave T. Ray a note saying, “Dear T. Ray don’t bother looking for me. Lily P.S. People who tell lies like you should rot in hell” (42). This is a major turning point in this book because Lily had never stood up to her father like that.

Lily feels guilt for killing her mother at the beginning of the novel. She was always beaten down by T. Ray, getting used to punishment and his scornfulness. She was also very upset that her mother had left her with T. Ray, making her think that her mother never loved her and left because of it. However, as she develops in the story, she changes drastically. When she arrives at the Boatwright’s, she is much like how she was with T. Ray, but as she stays there longer, she starts to gain independence, a stronger self confidence and overall becomes stronger.

The novel, The Secret Life of Bees, written by Sue Monk Kidd, takes place in 1964 in Southern Carolina, where the action is occurring in the novel. The Civil Rights Movement is the underlying historical background in the story, which introduces the readers to racism in the very beginning. Kidd presents a strong message about racism through the setting of the story and the roles of the characters. This setting addresses many conflicts that will arise in the novel.