The Secret Life Of Bees Theme Essay

August Boatwright, the fictional beekeeper in the bildungsroman, The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, insisted that “the world was really one big bee yard” (Kidd 92). Therefore, it is fitting that beehives represent a family unit or a community, of which love, symbolized by honey, is produced. In the beginning of the novel, a “queenless hive” serves as an accurate representation of the life of Lily Owens, the fourteen-year-old protagonist of the novel, whose mother died under peculiar circumstances when Lily was four, leaving her without a queen bee, who is considered “the unifying force of the community,” and in the hands of an abusive, neglectful, and unloving father, bittered from the absence of his wife (Kidd 1). Eventually, Lily

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

In The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, a young girl named Lily struggles with growing up with only a harsh father and a housemaid while trying to find her own place in the world. At the age of four, Lily accidentally shoots her mother while trying to help her in a fight against Lily’s dad. Ever since that day, Lily has a difficult time trying to be a lady and trying to cope with her somewhat abusive father. One day, when Lily is fourteen, the housemaid Rosaleen is sent to jail for pouring dip spit on white men’s shoes but later gets assaulted by the men and is taken to the hospital where Lily goes to sneak her out. In order to help incorporate the story’s title into the story, the author has written epigraphs, that are about bees, for every chapter in the book. Chapter two’s epigraph says “ On leaving the old nest, the swarm normally flies only a few metres and settles. Scout bees look for a suitable place to start the new colony. Eventually, one location wins favor and the whole swarm takes to the air”(34). This epigraph parallels the story because of the similarities in how bees move on and look for somewhere to start their new lives and how Lily and Rosaleen try to start their new

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

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.

1964 was a year of great progress in the Civil Rights Movement, bringing about change to the lives of many. In order to cope before and after the passing of the Civil Rights Act, a great number of people focused on the religious aspect of their lives, an aspect that is shared with the novel The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. In her historical fiction novel, Kidd narrates the story of how Lily Melissa Owens, a motherless girl, was surrounded by change during 1964. Lily’s journey to find information about her mother leads her to August, May, and June, otherwise known as the Calendar Sisters. The events that happen at the Calendar Sister’s home bring change not only to Lily, but to many others as well. Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees is a novel filled with the potential of gaining insight into the novel by examining its thematic, symbolic, and religious aspects.

“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 title of this book is so significant knowing that the bees relate to all things in the story. The secret life of bees, is directed to the life that Lily did not realize she had. The bees signify the relation to all the people who helped Lily get to where she found who she was. The author wanted to convey a obscure perspective of life and that there many be more to life than you think. Reading this story can change you perspective of the title after getting to know the characters and what they had achieved in the story.

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.

Kidd wrote a short story called “The Secret Life of Bees” and it was awarded the Katherine Anne Porter Prize for Fiction and was in a piece in the 1994 edition of Best American Short Stories (“Sue Monk Kidd”). This short story’s success led to Kidd’s first novel, The Secret Life of Bees. This novel won became a bestseller and won the SEBA Book of the Year Award and the Southeastern Library Association Fiction Award (“The Secret Life of Bees”). The novel was also nominated for an International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award as well as the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction.

Bees have a secret life we don’t know anything about.” (Kidd 148). In the book August told Lily about how bees live and how the queen bee lays eggs that become worker bees later on. Teaching Lily about bees helps Lily think about herself and her life living without a mother. She realized that the queen bee is like a mother to all the thousands of worker bees in the hive. This realization makes Lily understand that even though she didn’t grow up with her mother, it doesn’t mean that she could not have a motherly figure to love her and take care of her like her mother would have. Along with the queen bee becoming a symbol of her mother; later in the story, Lily understands that the statue of Mary in the sister’s home, also symbolizes a mother to thousands. Believing in the symbolism of the statue of Mary helps Lily accept and deal with the trauma of her mother's death and to heal her

The famous novel 'The Secret Life of Bees' written by Sue Monk Kidd and the movie directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood depict many themes of friendship, love, freedom, and family. The film and novel tell a fascinating story while teaching the readers and viewers life morals. Both versions of this story are emotional and touching, and will have you wanting to know more. Although I enjoyed the two interpretations of this story, I believe some significant points were missing or were portrayed differently in the film.

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

In The Secret Life of Bees there are several themes revealed throughout the novel. The themes or message in the novel would be acceptance,challenges and also freely expressing yourself. The theme acceptance is commonly used throughout in the novel. The theme for acceptance is being accepted takes time but happens over time.

The Secret Life of Bees, written by Sue Monk Kidd, is a story that follows our narrator, Lily Melissa Owens, who describes events that took place in the summer she turned 14. The story begins in Sylvan, South Carolina, and focuses on Lily as a lonely teenager. Right from the start, we see that she suffers from an unhappy home life, due to struggle within the family and internal struggle within herself. As a young child of 4, Lily lost her mother in an unfortunate accident; during a fight between her parents, she got her hands on a gun and mistakenly shot her mother. The result has left her with a neglectful father, T. Ray, a surrogate mother Rosaleen, and enough guilt to last a lifetime. Furthermore, the rest of the book describes her escape from her father, along with Rosaleen, and her stay at the Boatwright sisters’ house. Throughout the novel, the author displays examples of a variety of literary terms. The four main terms most present are that of foreshadowing, symbolism, theme, and tone.