Sue Monk-Kidd In The Secret Life Of Bees, And Bernhard Schlink

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.

Setting of Novel: The Secret Life of Bees took place in the 1960s in Sylvan, South Carolina

Sean Connery stated: “Some age, others mature”. In Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees, literary devices such as indirect characterization, symbolism and allusions are displayed. Throught Kidd’s novel, these literary devices help to present to the reader that Lily has undergone changes, developing her into a more mature character over the course of the novel.

Rosa Parks. Emmett Till. Martin Luther King Jr. All three of these people played a significant role in the creation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This law was just passed when Lily Owens, a fair-skinned girl from South Carolina, turned 14. But as she found out, not everybody will abide by it. When one of the workers from her father’s peach farm, Rosaleen, tries to register to vote, she gets in trouble with the biggest white supremacist in town. When Lily and Rosaleen run away, they find safety in a beekeeper’s house in Tiburon. There, she’ll discover things she never knew about her past, herself, and what it means to be loved. Just as Lily uncovered layers of her life, there are also many layers to the novel as a whole. The surface, thematic, symbolic, historical, religious, and literary layers all add important insight into the characters and plot of the story that we might have not seen otherwise. In this essay, all be explaining how the symbolic, thematic, and religious layers affected Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees.

In Sue Monk Kidd’s novel, “The Secret Life of Bees,” about a troubled girl named Lily, the motif of curiosity is developed as an underlying characteristic of Lily and the novel. The development of curiosity within Lily is demonstrated more efficiently in the novel by Sue Monk Kidd than the movie. The motif of curiosity evolves as Lily matures in the novel, while in the movie the meaning of her curiosity is lost. By incorporating the feature of curiosity within Lily throughout the entire novel gives the it a more meaningful impression. The movie lacks the value that the novel possess due to the absence of curiosity.

Living in an abusive relationship can be really hard. In Sue Monk Kidd’s novel “The Secret Life of Bees”, the main character Lily, goes through a tough time in life and has to make many hard decisions in life after her mother’s “death”. Symbolism is the use of symbols to represent ideas or qualities, for example bees symbolize Lily and her mother in numerous instances throughout the novel. Lily’s life relates to a bees life in multiple ways.

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.

Sue Monk Kidd’s three key literary devices go as follows: hyperbole, indirect characterization, and symbolism. Through her stellar integration of these devices, the reader is more interested in her reading, making for a more successful time in persuading them to agree with her theme. In her novel, The Secret Life of Bees, her desire to integrate these devices becomes transparent.

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 novel The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd has an important storyline, it teaches about attitudes and ways of coping with things from the past all while keeping the reader hooked and thinking about what will happen next. These qualities won it a People’s Choice Award in the category ‘favorite drama’. Contemporary Literary Criticism said “Honey-sweet but never cloying, this debut features a hive's worth of appealing female characters, an off-beat plot and a lovely style.” (Zaleski). The plot isn’t a standard plot as most books are its twisted and touches on sensitive topics, Kidd constantly brings in new ideas and ways to make the book more arousing.

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd is a book about a girl named Lily and the troubles she faces. The story takes place in the 1960’s and during that time period there was a lot of racism and segregation going on especially in the southern part of the United States. This book does a great job of portraying the conflicts each of the characters go through. The three main conflicts are Man versus Man, Man versus himself, and Man versus society. One of the very first conflicts introduced in the book is man versus man.

The Secret Life of Bees written by Sue Monk Kidd, is a Bildungsroman fiction novel published in 2002. This story takes place in Sylvan and Tiburon, South Carolina, where a 14-year old girl named Lily Owens lives a lonely and difficult life with her father, T-Ray. In order to escape her past life and haunting memories of her mother’s death, Lily and her caregiver escape to another town in South Carolina, where for the first time in her life she feels like she can call this place her home. Kidd develops the plot through internal and external conflicts of Rosaleen to illustrate how people’s lives are more complex than they appear.

In literature, childhood is often played off as a time of innocence: one of mere self-discovery. Sue Monk Kidd’s novel, The Secret Life of Bees, contradicts this notion, particularly as the plot thickens. Kidd portrays her feelings that innocence is fleeting; there one minute and gone the next. Once a curious girl, the struggles of Lily Owens’ life age her long before her time. In The Secret Life of Bees, Lily’s personal struggles shape the novel in its’ entirety.

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd is a novel that is narrated by the main character, Lily Owens. The novel begins with Lily being at home with her dad T-Ray. She doesn’t have a motherly since she shot her mom when her evil dad was abusing her. After having troubles with the law, she runs away from her city with her African American nanny, Rosaline. Her and Rosaline hitch-hiked to a South Carolina town, known as Tiburon. There they meet two sisters that would change their lives forever. As the reader starts every chapter, they will realize that every chapter starts out with an epigraph, which foretells the theme of every chapter. Every epigraph involves bees, which the author uses as a comparison tool for humans and their interactions with their surroundings.

The Secret Life of Bees includes many issues that were going on during the 1960’s. Some issues stated were more sought after than others depending where in the country one was located. In the book, Lily lives in the heart of the south, South Carolina, which makes it easy to point out specific, debatable topics. With this, The Secret Life of Bees portrays many of the movements and issues prevalent in the 1960s like Gender Issues, the Women’s Rights Movement, and the Civil Rights movement.