The Secret Life Of Bees Themes 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

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.

Authors tend to display their personalities and personal stories throughout their work. While the words on the paper may read one thing, the deeper connections and references hidden in the writing leads to even more nail-biting questions. Sue Monk Kidd was influenced to write her novel The Secret Life of Bees by the dreadful experiences she faced during her childhood, an early passion of literature, and finally her exploration of religious beliefs. Her childhood was most notably affected in the summer of 1964, when she witnessed public cruelty to blacks that, no doubt, haunted her for the rest of her life. Clearly, her first hand experiences that summer played an important role of setting it as a Civil Rights backdrop in The Secret Life of Bees.

The fictional novels “The Secret Life of Bees” by Sue Monk Kidd and “The Chosen” by Chaim Potok are coming of age stories about young protagonists. “The Secret Life of Bees” depicts the life of Lily Owens as she runs away from her abusive father, T. Ray, with her black caregiver, Rosaleen. Lily is seeking a connection to her dead mother while establishing new relationships in a new town called Tiburon, SC. Similarly, ‘The Chosen” portrays the journey of Danny Saunders as he breaks away from the path paved for him while coping with the lack of a father-son relationship. Within both novels, “The Secret Life of Bees” and “The Chosen”, the lack of parental figures in both Lily and Danny’s lives causes both protagonists to seek others to fill in these positions as seen when Lily relies on Rosaleen, the Black Madonna, and the Boatwright sisters and Danny seeks support from Reuven’s family.

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.

In the novel The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, Lily Owens discovers the deeper meaning of home, family, love, and choosing what matters, through a long journey of lies and hope. After experiencing cruelties, prejudice, and escaping from the authorities, Lily set out on an adventure to find out the truth of what happened to her mother.

Sue monk kidd wrote a book called secret life of bees published on november 8, 2001 . The book was about a girl named lily and how she wants to know more about her mom and wants to run from her father T. ray. In the book their is a well developed character named June boatwright. June was going to have a wedding and her fiance left her at the alter. August , sister of June took care of a little girl named Debra Owens during the time of segregation. Since june was born during this dark time I believe that she distrusted every white person that she didn't know because most were racist during this time. Due to the segregation and the distrust she had it was hard for her to trust white people like debras daughter lily and for her to gain confidence to marry again.

The novel The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, explores the story of Lily Owens, and her memories of that night when her mom was killed. To be left with only her dad T. Ray and her fill in mother Rosaleen. Through the story Rosaleen is faced with racism and Lily is faced with her abusive dad, when Lily finds the chance to leave she jumps at it. She rescues Rosaleen out of jail and they escape to a town in South Carolina called Tiburon. Lily is in search for the owner of a place that makes black Virgin Mary dolls. This is an empowering story that influences African American women.

The Secret Life of Bees is written and directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood. The movie was made in 2008 and the book was made in 2001. The movie was placed in South Carolina during the Civil Rights era. This movie deals with racism, guilt and domestic abuse. Bythewood talks about love between colored people, and the civil rights movement becoming a law by President Lyndon B. Johnson. The Secret Life of bees explores diversity in a positive way by revealing the racism of the time, by showing the interracial love of a couple, and representing historical improvements of race relations.

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

The Secret Life of Bees is a coming of age novel written by Sue Monk Kidd that takes place in the year of 1964, in the heart of the civil rights movement. Lily, the main protagonist of the story, lives on a quiet peach farm in Sylvan, North Carolina with her single father, T. Ray, and her housekeeper, Rosaleen. After the accidental death of Lily's mother when she was four, Lily has become infatuated with her mother's past, despite her knowing nothing about her except for having a portrait of the black mother of Jesus with Tiburon, South Carolina written on the back. When Rosaleen is charged with assault, theft, and the disturbance of the peace after three white men have beaten her, Lily is upset and vows she will be back for Rosaleen. In the

This last summer, i read a book called "The secret life of bees". The book took place in the year 1964 when the system of Jim crow was operating. Jim crow was a system of anti-black law where black people were considered second class citizens meaning that white people had their rights over the black people. Lily, the main character of the book lived in this period of time where racism was really common, black people din't have the same rights as white people, and they also had to struggle a lot for them to be able to vote. Also black people would use violence as their main way of solving a problem, meaning that there was always trouble, In the book Rosaleen, lily's baby sitter, happens to be offended by a group of white people in the town so

The Secret Life of Bees is a novel written to display the unfairness and inequality between races. To portray the true injustice of events that occurred the novel needs to be historically accurate. In order for the readers to believe what is happening in the book was a real event that occurred the author had to develop the characters around a specific event. In the book the text states “‘ I’m going to vote that's what.”... There was Rosaleen grabbed and thrashing side to side”(Kidd32). Here the author portrays the struggle colored people went through to vote. In order to get the readers to fully understand the situation colored people were put in she shows a character going through a like occurrence. In this case she shows Rosaleen in vivid

In The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, Lily Owens, a 14 year old girl from South Carolina, is forced to run away from her abusive father, T. Ray. She must learn how to live her life as Lily Williams in the home of three black women, August, May, and June Boatwright. She needs to find out who her mother is before it’s too late, but will she? I chose three quotations that show the theme of the story.

Secret Life of Bees is a historical fiction novel by Sue Monk Kidd. The novel focuses on, and is narrated by Lily Owens, a white fourteen year old girl. Lily changes throughout the beginning, middle, and end of the book. Three problems Lily faces in the book is racism, her relationship with her mother, and her relationship with her father.