Secret Life of Bees

Many quotes from the Secret Life of Bees express the views of different characters on racism. ” She was black as could be, twisted like driftwood from being out in the weather, her face a map of all the storms and journeys she’d been through. Her right arm was raised as if she was pointing the way, except her fingers were closed in a fist. It gave her a serious look, like she could straighten you out if necessary.” In this quote, Lily describes the Black Virgin Mary, the lord of the Sisters of Mary, and later learns the significance of this statue, which is to look within yourself to find your true, hidden self. When Lily has her earlier conversations with Zach, she has a slight edge of racism in her voice. When Zach tells Lily that he want to be a lawyer, she says: “I’ve just never heard of a Negro lawyer, that’s all. You’ve got to hear of these things before you can imagine them.” However, despite this fact, she supports Zach’s

Conflict is a key aspect in all pieces of literature. Without it, works would be very boring, predictable and would not be able to draw the reader in. There is usually one main conflict the protagonist faces, whether it is against an evil villain or the evil inside their own self. In the book The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, the courageous protagonist, Lily, struggles with an internal conflict with the guilt of possibly being the cause of her mother's death and the absence of knowledge about her mother. Following a clue left by her mother, Lily runs away from home and meets the "calendar sisters" in Tiburon, SC. There, she is finally able to discover who her mother actually was and learn the truth behind her mother's death: that Lily had accidentally shot her. Upon uncovering the whole truth, Lily is finally able to begin to forgive herself and shrug off the heavy guilt that had burdened her for years. Through Lily's struggle to figure out who her mother was and accept what happened to her, Sue Monk Kidd wishes to communicate that even if something

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.

The devastating tragedy of losing a person's mother at an early age can drastically affect that person's life. It can impact the way someone thinks, corresponds with others, and the way someone handles themselves emotionally. In the novel The Secret Life of Bees Lily Owens loses her mother at the early age of four. During Lily's journey she finds comfort and support in the women that she meets. Throughout the novel Lily goes through many changes because of the impact of the motherly figures of the Black Mary, Rosaleen, and the Calendar Sisters.

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

First, Deborah Fontanel, Lily’s mother was thought to have left Lily when she was young, but she didn’t believe any of that. Her mother became more prominent in Lily’s life despite not being with her when Lily’s spots a picture of Black Mary on a honey jar, which her mother also had. “I mean the identical, very same, exact ones as my mother’s.” (Kidd 65) This was so important because Lily would not have discovered the trio of beekeeping sisters which led to her answers and thus would not have found the Black Mary Statue who helped her in other ways.

The greatest potential influence and need in a child’s life is a mother, someone who will put their happiness and needs after their child’s. The major theme in Sue Monk Kidd’s, The Secret Life of Bee’s, is the importance of motherhood in a child’s life, displayed through Lily’s constant search for a mother figure. Lily starts off looking to Rosaleen as a guide in her life, she then finds a mother figure in the Black Mary after learning about her story, and in the end, accepts August and the other sisters of Mary as her surrogate mothers. In the Secret Life of Bees, Sue Monk Kidd excellently displays the theme of motherhood and its necessity.

Picture being the cause of a life-changing event including the loss of the woman who gave birth to you ‘The Secret Life of Bees’ was by Sue Monk Kidd. The main characters are Lily Owens, T Ray Owens, Rosaleen Daise, and August and June Boatwright. It is 1964 in Sylvan, South Carolina, and Lily Owens, a fourteen-year-old white girl, lives on a peach farm with her father, T. Ray, who is both neglectful and abusive. There are Bees that seem to be at home with her, often visit Lily. Lily Owens takes part in on the desperate search for answers about her mother lead to the discovery of how powerful love can transcend through a strong female community, overcoming racism and how a tiny bee may teach bigger life lessons.

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.

The essence of the relationship between a mother and child is a mutual ascendency in regards to identity. Children are subject to an instinctive longing for a mother. It is the mother’s influence that guides them in their process of discovering all the realities the world posses and in that processing discerning their identity. Conversely when a woman becomes a mother the presence of her child causes her to evaluate and develop her identity under the pretense of motherhood. Paula Nicolson touches on the value of both these scenarios in her article “Motherhood and Women’s Lives” where she expresses how the mother child relationship gives the pretense for both parties to find their authentic identities (Nicolson). Sue Monk Kidd evaluates the

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.

The Secret Life of Bees begins in the town of Sylvan, South Carolina and tells the story of 14-year-old Lily Melissa Owens. She lives on a peach orchard with her neglectful and abusive father, T. Ray. They have Black maid named Rosaleen who is a companion and caretaker of Lily. The book opens with Lily's discovery of bees in her bedroom and the story of how she killed her mother. The eve before her birthday Lily sneaks out into the peach orchard to visit the box of her mother’s belongings which is buried there however before she can hide them T. Ray finds her and punishes her. The next day Rosaleen and Lily head into town where Rosaleen is arrested for pouring her bottle of tobacco spit on three white men. Lily breaks her out of prison and they begin hitchhiking toward Tiburon, SC, a town Lily had seen on the back of a picture of a black Virgin Mary which her mom had owned. They hitch a ride to Tiburon and once there, they buy lunch at a general store, and Lily sees a picture of the same Virgin Mary on a jar of honey. She asks the store owner where it came from and he gives her directions to the Boatwright house. They then meet the makers of the honey: August, May and June Boatwright, who are all black. Lily makes up a wild story about being recently orphaned. The sisters welcome Rosaleen and Lily into their home. They are then introduced to beekeeping and the Boatwright’s way of life. Lily learns more about the Black Madonna honey that the sisters make. She begins working

Helen was designed to show the struggles of the many people who lived in such conditions that their greatest wish was to be in heaven. They had abandoned hope of improving their social class and rather sought to remain as faithful as possible. Helen’s quiet, almost angelic, piety was a symbol to those people of strength and sacrifice. Her death especially proved her strength as well as solidifying her connection to Maria. Helen, through the mix of these two things, became a combination of tragedy as well as victory, a memory of her sister and inspiration to all those like

The family is catholic and some different biblical events are used to symbolize different events that occur in the family. The mention of an angel coming to Mary to tell her she was pregnant (Chapter 2, page 11) symbolized how it took a miracle for the girl’s father to allow them to go to school. Maria Teresa gaining a soul (Chapter 3) symbolized how she came to be more of a woman and accepted into the family. It wasn’t until after her communion that she was accepted into Minerva’s circle of loyalty and secrets. The symbolism of Christ’s resurrection in three days (Chapter 10) was used as a false ideology and instead of getting a resurrection another member of her family was taken