Secret Life Of Bees Character Analysis

(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.

Nurse bees have a gift for nurturing, and they always feed and care for all the baby bees. August depicts all of these aspects in her every day actions. She was once even a maid who raised a small girl, Deborah Fontanel, to womanhood. August is also a big sister, so she has the inclination to nurture and care for May and June whenever they need her. Nurse bees are substitute mothers to all the baby bees in the hive. August is similar to them in that way as well because she acts as a substitute mother to Lily since Lily's mother is dead. August also has the obligation, as a beekeeper, to take care of all the bees in all the hives that she controls. She has to keep them cool in the summer and carefully keep the whole bee society running smoothly. The queens have to be healthy, the workers have to do their jobs, and none of this would happen without August taking care of everything. A nurse bee is the most self-sacrificing bee of all. They give up their freedom to take care of others. When it came to the color of the house, August even said, “Well this is the tackiest color I’ve ever seen, and we’ll have half the town talking about us, but if it can lift May’s heart like

“‘People can start out one way, and by the time life gets through with them they end up completely different’” (Kidd 293). This quote from August Boatwright perfectly encompasses what happens to Lily during The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. All throughout the novel, the increased maturity of Lily’s character is very noticeable. At the beginning of the book, Lily, a 14-year-old white girl who is living in the South in the 1960’s, accepts segregation without questioning it. By the end, her perspective on life and others changes to reflect a more sophisticated woman. Through characterization, Lily matures as a person because she learns how to face conflicts as an adult and treat people in a grown-up way.

When one looks up the definition for family it says a group consisting of parents and children living together in a household. Well August is the parent and June, Rosaleen, May, and Lily are all the children. We have a family right here. Motherhood was a motif that helped play into the theme of family in this book. Lily considers Rosaleen as a mother, yet Rosaleen is not as sophisticated as she wants a mother to be. Rosaleen is the person to help Lily when she is hurt, who defends Lily against her father, has the courage and strength to go and vote and is a motherly figure to Lily. August can be looked at as a mother too. She gives Lily wise wisdom, she is there for Lily through the pain about her mother, she teaches her about beekeeping, something her mother enjoyed too, she teaches her about religion, and the courage to be a leader. Lastly, her mother, Deborah is her real mother. She helps Lily realize that nobody is perfect and even mothers who love their kids need the courage to carry on. Lily learns from all these important figures that she just needs to be the best person she can be from all the wisdom and courage all these mothers help Lily understand. “I accidently killed her,” I said staring straight into her eyes. “Listen to me now,” said August, tilting my chin to her face. “That’s a terrible, terrible thing for you to live with. But you’re not unlovable. Even if you did accidently kill

When Lily and Rosaleen join August Boatwright’s house, August is warm and welcoming, and Lily can breathe a

First of all, The Secret Life of Bees is a 1960’s novel based on a child named Lily, who was bossed around and treated unfairly by her dad T-Ray, which he himself had a black maid named Rosaleen working for him since before Lily was born. Lily and Rosaleen had a very special relationship that had loyalty, trust,

People make decisions everyday from simple things like whether or not to eat breakfast or larger decisions like whether or not to take the new promotion at work. These decisions are usually dawned upon us suddenly and we look to others to help decipher which decision is the ideal decision. In The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, Lily Melissa Owens is actuated by a variety of characters to make both ambiguous and venerable judgments throughout the novel. She did not do this on her own for she had people in her life communicating with her to finalize the verdicts on her decisions. Some of the persuaders were T. Ray, May, June, August, Zach, the Daughters of Mary, and even her mother, Deborah Fontanel Owens. Saying that, they all

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

Additionally, later on in the novel when Zach gets back from jail, August and June run over to him and are so excited and so are Lily and Rosaleen. On page 202 it states "I had never seen August run before, and I could not believe how quickly she crossed the grass...'It's Zach!' she shouted at me, and I dropped my notebook and flew down the steps." The quote explains how excited Lily is along with the sisters that Zach is home because she feels like she is part of the family. This suggests that Lily is fitting in with how the Boatwright's run the family and who they value and how they react to certain situations. Furthermore, on page 204 it says " 'I could use your help right now to drape the hives,' August said to Zach as they started to leave... 'You wanna come, Lily?' August said. 'Yes ma'am.' " When August asks Lily if she wants to take part in the tradition of draping the hives it is a major sign that she is being enmeshed in the family and the culture. Lily has been taking care of the bees so much that she now knows how to deal with them, and August asking Lily to take part in the traditional thing to do when a death occurs, shows how involved Lily has become with the

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

Lily comes to know three incredible women called the Boatwrights. Their names are August, June, and May. Lily became closest to August although she was close to May and June, also. Lily felt as though August had a comforting and consoling way about her. August once told Lily “Actually, you can be bad at something...but if you love doing it, that will be enough.” (Kidd 111). Her motivational life advice helped to guide Lily. Furthermore, August had to be the one to tell Lily that they had lost May; May had killed herself. Lily did not take the news so well. Lily claimed she had started to “shiver…[she] could feel the teeth in [her] mout, crashing against each other.” (Kidd 193).

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.

She loves and cares for Lily and could never hurt her. Originally, Lily felt she was better than Rosaleen because of Lily's prejudices, but she comes to see Rosaleen as an amazing and gutsy woman.The relationship between Rosaleen and Lily was good . Lily has take out Rosaleen out of jail because she refuse to apologize to a white men . T.Ray doesn’t even care about Rosaleen in jail she take Lily and go to home , but Lily escape from home and go to take her out . This shows that Lily care about her and that is kind with Rosaleen . They go out of town because she was fugitive . Rosaleen accompines Lily to Tiburon to get information of her mother , when they arrived to Tiburon they see a jar of honey that has Black Mary picture and Lily was interesting in the person who made that honey and go to the house of August and her

T. Ray’s neglect and violent nature is entirely contrastive to the supportive environment August provides. T. Ray is violent, physically and verbally abusive, and has very low standards for Lily whereas August is loving, nurturing, has high educational standards and is a good role model. Although it is argued T. Ray is abusive considering his past, there is no excuse for harming his child. Because T. Ray is Lily’s father, she still loves him. The abuse forces a categorically difficult family dynamic on the Owens. Lily loves her father and it can be surmised that T. Ray loves her as well, so when the family is introduced love and trust into a situation of systematic abuse an uncomfortable and confusing internal dynamic is expected. Lily feels as if her life is jar of swarming bees: “‘You can go,’ I said. But the bees remained there, like planes on a runway not knowing they'd been cleared for takeoff. They crawled on their stalk legs around the curved perimeters of the glass as if the world had shrunk to that jar. I tapped the glass, even laid the jar on its side, but those crazy bees stayed put.” (28). Lily quickly realizes that her current situation reflects the actions of the bees. The bees fought their condition at first, then eventually accepted their environment. She was swarming at first -- foraging for food and trying to get out of her prevalent state. Lily is constantly finding herself looking for a way out. Towards the end, she gets tired. Lily is done fighting her