Kidd

“There is nothing perfect,’ August said from the doorway. ‘There is only life” (Kidd 256). This quote from The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd explains Lily Owens life, a young girl with an unloving father and a mother who abandoned her and was later shot and killed by her own daughter, Lily. Lily has a hard time finding her place in the world and understanding why her life is the way it is. She decides it is time for her to take charge of her own life. She finds herself in Tiburon, South Carolina

Part of growing up is adapting to changes. Lily Owens is the protagonist, and narrator of the book, The Secret Life of Bees, written by Sue Monk Kidd. After being fed up with her father’s horrid behavior, Lily takes a risk and decides to run away to Tiburon, South Carolina, with her “stand-in mother,” Rosaleen, in hopes of learning more about her deceased mother‘s past. Throughout the novel, Lily learns what family really means and discovers that you can find love even in the strangest places. In

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

racism in The Secret Life of Bees. Kidd first introduces racism in Chapter One when three white men insult Rosaleen on her way to town to register to vote. Lily describes the attack that follows narrating, “They lunged at her...Rosaleen lay sprawled on the ground, pinned, twisting her fingers around clumps of grass. Blood ran from a cut beneath her eye,” (33). Soon after, the police arrest Rosaleen and call Lily’s father to pick her up First and foremost, Kidd writes in a style easily comprehended

Sue Monk Kidd, portrays the life of a young, teenage girl, Lily Owens. She is hopeful in finding information about her passing mother. As Lily stays persistent and determined, she endures change and a new perspective in life. Throughout the novel, Kidd proves not all family has to be biologically related. Lily will find herself in an eye-opening circumstance of love; something she has never felt before. Positive changes occur in many characters through family, love, and faith. Sue Monk Kidd was born

The novel The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd has an important storyline, it teaches about attitudes and ways of coping with things from the past all while keeping the reader hooked and thinking about what will happen next. These qualities won it a People’s Choice Award in the category ‘favorite drama’.Contemporary Literary Criticism said “Honey-sweet but never cloying, this debut features a hive's worth of appealing female characters, an off-beat plot and a lovely style.” (Zaleski). The plot

bees was written by author Sue Monk Kidd and was set in South Carolina 1964. Kidd creatively uses bee insects as an unhuman like object to express and symbolize the certain aspects and ways of life throughout the novel. Specifically, in this novel the bees act as models of human society. Sue Monk Kidd presents themes and ideas through the eyes of the character Lily, who is 14 years old in the novel. These ideas are related to having a sense of belonging and also Kidd uses Lily to represent the European’s

During the 1960’s Sue Monk Kidd depicts a social climate dominated by racism and racial discrimination. The novel, Secret Life of the Bees by Sue Monk Kidd depicts a society plagued by racial stereotypes and injustice in the 1960’s through the view of Lily; A 14 year old runaway growing up in the highly racist south. Throughout the Secret Life of the Bees, Kidd expresses racial inequality in the south during the sixties; Whether it is depicted through Lily’s changing perception of race, The acceptance

a bildungsroman, The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd, heavily focuses on the independence of an abused girl growing up in a time of feminine oppression and racial discrimination. For example, although Lily possesses a great ambition for literature, her father portrays contempt for it and thinks of college as “a waste of money for girls, even if they did, score the highest number a human being can get on their verbal aptitude test”(Kidd 15). Lily grudgingly respects her wish of her father to

enough’’” (Kidd 289). This passage in The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, is significant to the novel because these strong, stylistic words spoken by August are what causes Lily to realize that she will never be alone. Throughout the passage Kidd uses strong words such as “all day long”, “everlasting home”, and “ever” (Kidd 289). These powerful words are used to emphasize that as long as Lily has faith in Mary, she will never have to face the challenges of life on her own. Kidd also uses the