Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life Of Bees

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.

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.

"New beekeepers are told that the way to find the elusive queen is by first locating her circle of attendants." (57) This quote is at the beginning of chapter three and not only foreshadows many things to come, but within the quote, two of the novel’s main metaphors are mentioned, bees and the queen, which is referring to society and a mother figure. Although this quote is largely interpreted as a metaphor for Lily looking for a new queen or mother figure, and perhaps August being that mother, I believe that it has another meaning as well. I believe that the Black Madonna also serves as a “queen” and mother figure to all the women in “The Secret Life of Bees.”

Not to long ago I read a book called the Secret Life of Bees and it has some parallels with some events that take place during the Jim Crow period of American history (1960’s) and what is happening today in world. Sue Monk Kidd placed the Secret life of Bees in the 1960’s since that was the ending of the Jim Crow era of America. For those who don’t know what the Jim Crow period was it was the time not long after the Civil War ended and the Blacks had their freedom til the Civil Rights Act was passed. This is important to the story line since The Secret Life of Bees take place after the Civil Rights Act was passed. Why is Jim Crow important to the story? One of the main characters Rosaleen early in the story is going to sign up to vote since

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.

Imagine you have to live the rest of your life knowing that you killed your own mother. That's exactly what Lily Owens has to live with for the rest of her life. In the story “The Secret Life Of Bees" by Sue Monk Kidd, Lily was only four years old, her parents were fighting and her mother Debroah dropped her gun and Lily picked it up and shot it. Shortly after the accident, Lily’s father hired a nanny to do the chores and look after Lily. When she turned 14, she and Rosaleen ran away to look for any evidence of her mother because her father lied to her about what happened to her.

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.

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.

Many pieces of literature have comparable characteristics, including the use of literary elements to portray deeper meaning. “The Story of an Hour” and The One Who Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest are great pieces of literature which keep their main focus around the use of symbolism, hidden in the plot. Whereas Mrs. Mallard, from “The Story of an Hour”, appears to be insane due to her husband, characters from The One Who Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest gains their insanity from Nurse Ratched, both authors incorporate symbolism in order to display themes and reveal character traits

Have you ever had to live with the guilt of killing your own mother? Well, in "The Secret Life Of Bees" by Sue Monk Kidd, Lily kills her mom when she was young by accident and has to stay with her mentally and physically abusive father. Rosaleen gets arrested, but Lily helps her flee jail. Then they ran away, also partly because of what T-Ray, her father, had said to her about her mother. They left with the destination of an address that was on the back of a picture Lily's mom had left.

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.

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

Ellen Hunnicutt once said “. . . figurative language adds pizzazz. It raise work above the plain, the dull, the ordinary.” This quote explains how using figurative language helps create a more interesting and useful way of expressing a tone of a character or event.Figurative language is a uses of words, phrases, and sentences to help to make the characters and story line come more to live in the reader’s mind. Some examples of Figurative languages are similes, metaphors, hyperbole, personification, onomatopoeia, and many more. Figurative language help the reader see tone and mood in each of the example of figurative language because the reader can see or image the event or character in their mind. In a story, poem, or any form of writing, figurative language is extremely important to a reader because if a sentence didn’t have figurative language the reader may not find the story or poem interesting or even find it confusing and difficult to understand.In addition the use of figurative language is crucial when an author is writing. In the stories “The Treasure of Lemon Brown” by Walter Dean Myers and The Pigman, By Paul Zindel, the authors used Figurative language to develop the tone of their stories so that that the reader can visualize it in their mind.

The novel The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd is centered around the main character, Lily, and her quest to find a mother like figure. Lily runs away from home in order to escape for former life of oppression, and to try and find herself. She met and was taken in by the Boatwright sisters who introduced her to a whole new world. Symbolism plays a major part in the book and is used by the author to uncover parts of the plot that were not clearly stated. The characters Rosaleen, Lily, and May all change a great deal throughout the course of the book and these changes are shown through the presence of water. The author repeatedly uses the symbol water to show a clense or renewal of characters which marks the beginning of the character’s evolution.

One example from the text is, “The dark sky, filled with angry, swirling clouds, reflected Greg Ridley’s mood...” In this quote the author uses a metaphor to compare the sky to Greg’s mood. This can help develop the mood, angry, of the story because the clouds are dark and swirling, which is not a happy mood. Another example from the story is, “The voice was high and brittle, like dry twigs being broken…” When the author uses this simile to compare Lemon Brown’s voice to twigs, a reader can understand that his character is not threatening and frightened. Since Lemon Brown sounds like twigs being broken and his voice was high then he is not going to scare any intruders. One last example from “The Treasure of Lemon Brown” is, “A car passed, its tires hissing over the wet street..” The use of personification in this quote can help develop setting. The car’s tires can not actually hiss, so the author is giving the tires a human quality. When the tires hiss over the wet street a reader can understand that the setting is a gloomy, dark, rainy day. In conclusion, Walter Dean Myers uses metaphors, similes, and personification to create the characteristics of the story’s mood, character, and