The Secret Life Of Bees Character Analysis

Ray was Lily’s abusive father that does not care about Lily’s clothing, sleepovers, or even football games (8). (SS) When Lily calls T. Ray and he cannot answer a simple question about her, she tries to convince herself that it does not matter by telling herself, “Don’t cry. Don’t you dare cry. So what if he doesn’t know the color you love best? So what?” (160). (SS) Lily has the idea that she is “unlovable” and wonders “who could love her” (242). (SS) But little does Lily know that a very significant figure will come into her life and will show Lily what being loved by a “family” member feels like. (PS) August Boatwright, an African American beekeeper, shows Lily her empathetic heart right when Lily walks through her door. (SS) When Lily comes to the Boatwright household seeking for a place to stay, August opens up her home to Lily, exclaiming, “Well, you can stay here till you figure out what to do. We can’t have you living on the side of the road” (72). (SS) August could have turned Lily away and told her to find another place to stay, but she graciously opens up her home to Lily. (SS) In the same way, when Lily faints of embarrassment during a Daughters of Mary gathering, August acts as if it is her fault by telling Lily, “I should’ve turned on the fans in

Lily shows her non-racist side in the very beginning of the book, after Rosaleen has been put in jail for spitting on a very racist white man’s shoe. She willingly sneaks into jail and attempts to free Rosaleen, but gets sent home with the racist and mean father, T. Ray. She once again tries to free Rosaleen, and this time sneaks into a hospital to free her. Lily is successful this time, and runs away with Rosaleen.

Once Lily accepts what she has done and learns that her mother's death did not make her a bad person, her conflict can finally be resolved. As a result of resolving her conflict, she is able to mature because of the struggle, just like other people are able to grow and evolve from their own mistakes. This is evident when she admits "Before coming here, my whole life had been nothing but a hole where my mother should have been, and this hole had made me different, left me always aching for something, but never once did I think what he'd lost or how it might've changed him" (Kidd 293). Lily finally realizes that her mother's death has not only affected her, but also her father, T. Ray, and the calendar sisters. Through the course of Lily's struggle, Lily learns a lot about life and matures into a wiser

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 addition to the Black Mary, Rosaleen showers Lily with love and support. Rosaleen treats Lily like she is her own daughter. Rosaleen accepts the way Lily is and has faith in her. "'Here you go. Happy Birthday" (28). Rosaleen cares about Lily and knows when something is important to her, like her Birthday. Lily never gets anything from T-Ray on her Birthday, but Rosaleen cares so much about her that she still gets Lily something. Rosaleen can tell when Lily is in pain or is sad like most mothers can. "'Well why don't we sit down on the side of the road awhile?'" (28). Rosaleen acknowledges the fact that Lily feels upset, and is comfortable expressing the need to rest and relax. Since Lily has known Rosaleen a long time she is comfortable expressing herself around Rosaleen and knows that Rosaleen will listen to her problems and insecurities. "'I was the only one who knew that despite her sharp ways, her heart was more tender than a flower skin and she loved me beyond reason'" (11). Rosaleen and Lily have a connection that most mothers and daughters have. They care

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

Eleanor Roosevelt once said “A woman is like a teabag, you can’t tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water.” Eleanor’s meaning behind these words was that a woman is much more than you expect her to be. In The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, the main character, Lily, meets three African-American sisters who go through difficult situations throughout the book. After meeting the sisters, Lily begins to understand the importance of women in society. A woman figure in your life can help you with your problems. They tend to heal a broken person with their mother-like qualities. Some people don't see how significant women are to humankind.

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

Lily’s first meeting with the black Mary occurs when she meets the Boatwright sisters: August, June, and May. At that moment Lily feels the nurturing of a mother and a deluge of emotions rain down on her. She could feel all sides of her, favorable and detrimental because “that’s what the black Mary did to me, made me feel my glory and my shame at the same time,” (Kidd 71). Lily, for being barely an adolescent, at first is not capable of grasping the concept of people being both angelic and corrupt. At the beginning of the story she sees T. Ray as the human embodiment of evil. Counter to her initial beliefs, Lily learns that people are not as simple as she wants them to be. This is largely the result of the mothering force of August, which is a more physical representation of what the black Mary embodies. The black Mary illustrates Lily starting to see the world from a multidimensional perspective. In the same manner as the black Mary representing a mother for Lily, she represents a mother-like figure to all the Daughters of Mary. While the other Daughters may not have been missing mothers, the black Mary creates a family-like binding between them, keeping them together throughout even them most poignant times. The black Mary is a mother to all and all Lily wants in the Boatwright house is to be seen as one of them. Ultimately, “they didn’t even think of me being different,” (Kidd 209). This acceptance

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.

The Secret Life Of Bee’s is authored by Sue Monk Kidd and has interesting themes throughout the book. The star of the show is Lily, she is the main character and takes us on her journey through her life to where she is now, in high school. With a full time angry dad fathering her, she and her maid/friend abandon ship. The two peas in a pod run off to Tiburon, South Carolina. Lily goes to prove that there is a great deal of resilience in the human spirit.

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

Luckily for Lily, she comes upon the Boatwright sisters once she reaches Tiburon. Because of the fact Lily does not have anyone to share her love with, she is compelled to stay and live with the Boatwrights. At one point in the novel, Lily and August are having a conversation when August asks Lily “What else do you love Lily?”(Kidd 39). Lily then thinks to herself, “No one had ever asked me that before. What did I love? Right off the bat I wanted to say that I loved the picture of my mother…but I had to swallow that back”(39). Lily does not feel comfortable enough yet that she says, “ I love writing poems, just give me something to write, and I’ll love it” despite the fact that Lily really loves August (39). She loves August so much that she would rather stay in Tiburon with the Boatwrights than be with her own father T. Ray. The loss of Deborah results in Lily going to obtain love somewhere other than her own home. This is also why Lily takes Rosaleen with her. Rosaleen is a black nanny who used to work on T. Ray’s farm. She has been there for Lily in the past but she cannot always be there one hundred percent because of her race. Due to Deborah’s death, Lily does not have a mother figure, however, he journey to Tiburon with Rosaleen proves to be a success as she finds the Boatwrights and strengthens her relationship with her nanny, Rosaleen.

This quote shows that… EXPLANATION. Furthermore, this shows that throughout this book August Boatwright represents the best motherly figure. August exhibits multiple motherly traits such as caring for Lily, being a mentor for Lily, and always accepting Lily for who she is.

A journey is a long and often difficult process of personal change and development. Throughout the novel The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, the main character, Lily Owens goes on a summer-long journey to find the truth along with her true self. She learns an extensive amount of lessons throughout her experiences with the things and people surrounding her. Kidd exemplifies Lily’s changes through the use of a metaphor comparing love to fire, a reflection to show her thoughts of anger and imagery to describe May after her suicide, to illustrate the quintessential identity Lily has been searching for.