The Secret Life Of Bees Essay

The Secret Life of Bees, written by Sue Monk Kidd, is a bildungsroman novel about an adolescent girl and her maturation throughout her fourteenth summer. The novel takes place in the 1960s while the Civil Rights Act is still fairly new to people. Throughout the novel, protagonist Lily Owens struggles as she tries to find her way through obstacles thrown at her. As Lily experiences different events, good and bad, she matures and grows as an individual. Having grown up around a black woman in this time period, Lily had no bias toward one race or the other. But also having grown up in a primarily white town, she never saw the other side of the bias. As the story progresses, Lily learns that people will have biases against her, which is something

There are many different conflicts in the novel The Secret Life of Bees. Some conflicts are small and others a major. There are a couple that have to do with Lily running away and the precautions that come with it. Others have to do with the relationship Lily has with her father T. Ray. The rest of the conflicts are a mixture of conflicts between the police, or between June, and other members of the household. There are many different conflicts in this novel, but all of them are very important to the plot of the novel.

In The Secret Life of Bees, author Sue Monk Kidd, portrays the transformation of Lily Owens from a child burdened with the guilt of her mother's death to a strong and confident young woman, as a result of living with May, Rosaleen, and August. Lily, burdened with the guilt of her mother's death becomes terrified of her father, T. Ray. August and May guide Lily’s growth to a life of faith and devotion while Rosaleen remains as Lily’s constant companion. As Lily finds her true identity she transforms into a strong and confident young woman which helps her face the world and all of its challenges.

In Sue Monk Kidd’s novel The Secret Life of Bees there is a psychological allegory present, which is proven by the characters in the story. The psychological allegory is based on the theory by Sigmund Freud, this theory states that in the human brain there is three major psychological portions, the id, the ego, and the super ego. The id is the portion that induces selfishness and hatred and other “bad” actions, the super ego is the opposite of the id, putting others before ones self and caring for others, the ego is the perfect balance between the two and is almost always the psyche portrayed be the protagonist. In this novel it is T. Ray who illustrates the id, through his bad treatment of Lily, his lack of

The Secret Life of Bees: Changing Characters The Secret Life of Bees is an interesting story with many different characters interacting with each other. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd is a fictional book written about a young girl named Lily Owens. In the summer of 1964 in Sylvan, South Carolina, a girl named Lily Owens escapes from her abusive father, T. Ray after she shot her mother when she was four. When running away,she searches for the truth about her mother and escapes to Tiburon, South Carolina to the Boatwright sisters.

Every girl goes through a time when she is trying to find herself- find out who she is. Every girl tries to build a personality; a sense of self. She is filling in the puzzle of her with puzzle pieces that don’t have a determined shape. The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd is a book about this searching. The main character, a teenage girl, is going through this time when she is trying to find out who she is. In The Secret Life of Bees, this girl, Lily Owens, is living unhappily. Her mother was killed when she was very young, and her father is cruel. Lily decided she had had enough and runs away. The Secret Life of Bees is a story about a girl who is finding herself, finding out who she is and who she wants to be. This leads to a journey where she finds a place where she can thrive, and develop her sense of self.

The Secret Life of Bees features a rich layer of themes that allows the reader to digest the novel deeply. A theme that provides content for this layer is motherhood. Throughout the novel, Lily sees the impact that having a mother, the one person that you can depend on, can have in life. At the very end of the novel, when Lily is adopted by August and the Daughters of Mary, she feels the love of each of her new mothers, and the combined internal love coming from herself and Mary. With all of this newly discovered love that she had received so little of in the past, Lily said, “All these mothers. I have

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.

Question 1- Kidd’s decision to write The Secret Life of Bees in the perspective of young Lily Owens allow the reader to deeply understand the internal struggles that have faced her from a young age. Through out the novel, Lily is looking for acceptance, understanding, and love, all things that she hasn’t felt for as long as she can remember. These feelings, or lack there of stem from the mystery and guilt surrounding the death of Deborah Owens, Lily’s mother. A young three year old Lily is presumably the cause of Deborah’s accidental death, and it’s something she’s never been able to get over. “This is what I know about myself. She was all I wanted. And I took her away” (Kidd 8). The direct look into the heart and mind of Miss. Owens allows the reader to become connected and invested into the story. This being said if her

The book by the name of The Secret Life of Bees written by Sue Monk Kidd is about a white girl named Lily Owens who goes on a journey to find more about her dead mother who passed away when she was young. She finds herself in the Boatwright’s house (home of the honey makers) that is strictly for African-American women because she believes that her mother spent much of her life there. Lily finds herself dealing with frequent racial issues as the story takes place in Southern Carolina during the Civil Rights Movement. By the end of this book, I can say that I enjoyed the novel because of the themes the author includes. First off, it shows the progression in Lily’s ignorance in terms of being more educated. In the beginning of the book, she thinks

“Creating unique characters is something every fiction author has to focus on because it can make the difference in writing a book that resonates with the audience…” (“5 Tips for”). In this case, in Kidd’s novel, The Secret Life of Bees, the author implements literary devices, such as, indirect characterization, symbolism, and allusions, in her writing. Moreover, the literary devices applied generate reader’s feelings toward the characters.

The Civil Right Act occurred in 1960 which allowed African-Americans more rights. In the novel The Secret Life of Bees many characters challenges and uncover the meaning of accepting taboo ideas. Set in 1964, Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees suggests that accepting taboo actions does not necessarily compromises a person’s moral compass and can lead to an awareness and understanding of the world.

Throughout the story, The Secret Life of Bees, Sue Monk Kidd elaborates on the prolonging theme,that people grow and change overtime through their experiences. This theme is furthermore developed through actions and experiences of the author. This theme is seen within the characters, Lily and May. At the beginning of the story Lily is described as a slightly prejudiced girl towards African American people, but after meeting the Boatwright sisters, she grows to love and appreciate them as cultured and intelligent people. Kidd writes, “I thought they could be smart, but not as smart as me, me being white. Lying on the cot in the honey house, though all I could think was August is so intelligent, so cultured, and I was surprised

In her novel, The Secret Life of Bees, Sue Monk Kidd uses her own childhood to mold the story