Who Is August Boatwright's Character

Her mother had passed years earlier, and August is found in denial about her death. For many years, she didn’t want to believe it and mentally would convince herself that she was coming back home and was alive. She convinced not only herself, but her brother also. Repeatedly in the novel she would make reference to her mom’s existence. On page 110, August wanted her mom to know that she had made friends with girls, because her mom always told her not to trust them. She explains, “I’d say can you see this Mama? Can you?” (110). She would claim to hear her mother’s voice, and when she asked her mom if she could see the life she was living, she said she hadn’t heard her mother’s voice in years. She wanted her mom to see that the things she taught her to stay clear of weren’t all true, and that she was doing okay. Not having a mother made August feel very different from her peers, and contributed to her insecurities. It wasn’t until her mother’s voice she once always heard began to dwindle when she realized her mother was in fact dead, and her faith of it being a possibility that she was alive vanished. On page 225, August for the first time makes note of this: “Once I came very close to saying for a long time my mother wasn’t dead yet. But Didn’t” (225). Evidently it took a while for August to settle with this and this moment was a turning point for her in the novel. This moment didn’t come until the last chapter of the novel, which goes to show it was a complicated journey for

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.

Not only is August caring and a good mentor, but she is also very accepting of Lily for who she is. Since the beginning of the book, August has always been an inviting and accepting character. August meet Lily when she showed up at her house, instead of turning her away August allow Lily to stay with them. “Well, you can stay here till you figure out what to do. We can’t have you living on the side of the road.”( Kidd ) August was just told that Lily and Rosaleen had run away from home. August welcomes them into her home and allows them to stay with her. As the book goes on many lies about Lily’s past are told. August knows that Lily is lying but never presses. When it finally comes time for the truth to be told, August never yelled, she just listened. When Lily is telling August about all of the lies she

The most important part of The Secret Life Of Bees was at the end when T. Ray tried to take Lily back and everyone at the honey farm and all of the Daughters Of Mary refused to let Lily go because they considered her family. I feel this is the most important part of the book because it showed that Lily’s relationships with people she is not related to by blood(and are not the same race) are stronger than the one she has with her own father.

August explains to Lily about the built in protection that’s around our hearts to heal the pain we go through. But May does not have that built in protection, instead she goes through everyone else's pain as if she is experiencing it herself. Later Lily ponders if May goes through her pain which is hatred, abuse, and betrayal from her father. It’s visible that Lily is unfamiliar of the type of person May is, and really grieves about her when she says, “I turned my pillow over and over for the coolness, thinking about May and her wall and what the word had come to that a person needed something like that. It gave me the willies to think what might be stuffed in among those rocks. The wall brought to my mind the bleeding slabs of meat Rosaleen used to cook, the gashed she made up and down them, stuffing them with pieces of wild, bitter garlic” (Kidd 98). At this point Lily just realizes the agony May is going through. And just deeply wonders and reflects what is written on those strips of papers hidden in the dark cracks. Lily then starts to conclude the injustice happening in the world, and the torture others are suffering. As chapters pass Lily feels she

May is seen as this happy caring person who wouldn’t hurt a fly, literally. She lured cockroaches out of the house using graham crackers and marshmallows. But what we learn later is that behind all the joy and smiles of May, is that she has crippling depression and that she feels the pain of others. At the beginning Lily the protagonist is oblivious to what May has to go through. “Miss May, I know you get really sad sometimes. My Daddy never feels. He never felt anything. I had rather be like you” “A worker bee weigh less than a flower petal, but she can fly with a load heavier than her. But she only lives for five weeks. Sometimes not feeling is the only way you can survive.” (Monk Kidd. 133) Lily has this perception of May but doesn’t understand that May is dieing inside. May’s ability to feel the pain of others leads to her suicide. One night Zach got in a fight in front of the movie theatre, once May heard about this she couldn’t cope with herself anymore and decided to kill herself in the river. If the people around May realized what was going on in her life they could've saved her

He was furious when he saw her. T- Ray pushed her around and screamed at her. He could not wait to get home so that he could punish her even more. August stepped in and asked if she could now take care of and be responsible for Lily. She knew that she could not let Lily go back to that horrible household. Lily was just starting to understand what life is really about, starting to mature and become a lady, and not have to worry about all the abuse from T- Ray. Her father gave his only daughter up in a mere second. He was done with her and could not wait to get Lily, his burden, out of his life. Before T- Ray left, Lily had to know what had truly happened to her mother even if it were their last words. These words would be what would help Lily to move on. She will never forget about her mother, but she will be able to think of things other than the killing of her mother. T- Ray knew that this time he had to tell her the truth, “It was you who did it, Lily. You didn’t mean it, but it was you.” (Kidd 299). Even though he just gave his daughter away, he has to care about her. T- Ray may have given up Lily, but he may have done it because he knew that she would have a better life being raised by people who can love and care for her. Knowing that she was the one to kill her mother was extremely hard, but this has helped her to let go of that hatred and show her how much she really does care about her mother no matter

August: I believe that Lily learned that sometimes you have to forgive things in life to get past hard times. She couldn’t forgive herself enough for killing her mother, and that is why she ran away. She needed to know the truth. Once she forgave herself, her whole life had changed.

When both she and August come clean, August tells Lily a piece of great advice. “‘Every person on the face of the Earth makes mistakes...we’re all so human. Your mother made a terrible mistake, but she tried to fix it...there is nothing perfect…there is only life.’” (Kidd 256). This quote shows how August is inadvertently telling Lily that she first has to forgive herself and accept the fact that she made a terrible mistake in order to get on in life. At the end of the novel, Lily has taken this advice to heart, as shown through the quote, “I guess I have forgiven us both, although sometimes in the night my dreams will take me back to the sadness and I have to wake up and forgive us again.” (Kidd 301). Clearly, August’s advice makes an impact on Lily, and she longer spends most of her time being in incessant guilt about the possibility of that situation. Therefore, Sue Monk Kidd’s advice is loud and clear- one must forgive them self in order to move

Without this fact Rosaleen never would have went to register and ran into the men that had beat her. Which in turn would mean that Lily probably never would have it to the Boatwright’s house where she finally learned about her mother. This point in history was a hard time for the African American society and setting the book then allows Kidd to include their hardships. This is also a time when NASA was beginning to try to land a man on the moon, a task that no one thought possible. While the country wanted to beat the Russians, August wasn’t ready for the mystery to be over. “‘Look at her good Lily,’ she said, ‘’cause you're seeing the end of something’” (Kidd 113). Including this historical event lets the reader see deeper into August. The author was able to show just how connected and wise August really is. She isn’t ready for that mystery of a beautiful object so far away to end. August knows that beauty untouched is somehow more

The Secret Life of Bees takes place in 1964 South Carolina, and is shown through the perspective of a fourteen year old girl named Lily owens. In the book you read about segregation, grief, guilt, self-doubt, abuse, love, and forgiveness. A conflict in The Secret Life of Bees is Lily overcoming the past, and forgiving her mother along with herself. Lily holds back a lot of unexpressed emotions growing up due to an accident in the past that she barely remembers.

Considering the fact that August is very sheltered at the beginning of the book. An example of when her sheltered life gets the better of her is right before her big audition when she states,

The last person that is important in the story along with many more is August’s mom. She helps August through hard times and is very caring. August may be hard to love he still has many friends and family that love him. Exposition: August and his friends Summer and Jack go through a fifth grade year at Beecher Prep in Manhattan, North River Heights. He has a

August is a excellent parent-like figure in Lily’s life and T-Ray is not. August is very compassionate. She knows how to handle difficult situations. When Zach went to jail she knew how to calm everyone down. She made it seem like everything was fine. She was very mature about May’s death. She knew how to cheer everyone up after a devastating time. August also knew what to do when Lily told her about the truth about who she and Rosaleen really were. She knew how to handle the tender situation perfectly. August was loving to Lily after she heard the truth even though Lily had lied to her. August knew that once she told Lily her side of the story Lily would be shocked. She knew that all Lily really needed was to be comforted. She knew that she

The way Sue Monk Kidd portrays the wise and caring character that is August is just very compelling to me. August’s importance to the plot of the novel and to the characters of the novel is very clear. August Boatwright is the moral “glue” to almost every main character in the Boatwright house before and after Lily Owens and Rosaleen arrive. Without August Boatwright, there’s no one to give May the attention and care that she needs. No other character except for maybe Lily shows any sort of patience and compassion for May like August does.