A Character Analysis Of Lily, By Sue Monk Kidd

In order to analyze the character of Lily, Erick Erikson’s theories of psychosocial development can be applied. In the book, as Sue Monk Kidd describes, Lily is in Stage five of Erikson’s theory: Identity vs. Identity. In this stage, adolescents like Lily are trying to explore themselves and develop their “sense of personal identity as part of their social group.” They often try out roles that they think they might take onto in future and tries to combine these into understanding themselves. Sometimes, adolescents who are experiencing difficulty connecting their roles with their identity will feel confused about who they are and “what they want to do in life.” Lily slowly approaches the sixth stage of Erikson’s Psychosocial Stages of development at the end of the book where she bonds with Zach. In the sixth stage, or Intimacy vs. Isolation “young adults [like Lily] find an intimate life companion” or isolate themselves from the society (Lesser & Pope, 2007, pp. 56). And, like the 2009 Youtube Video, titled “Erik Erikson’s Stages of development”, showed- self-identity will eventually occur at this sixth stage also.

Richard Knox described in his NPR 2010 article, “Teenage brains are different.” It does not matter what teens like Lily does, but what matters is how they approach it.

“Recent studies show that neural insulation isn't complete until the mid-20s.” This also may explain why teenagers, like Lily, are often so “self-centered.” If seen from T. Ray’s perspective- he might think that his daughter is just “rude [and] selfish” and does not care about him (which is also true as she did not get any love and affection from him;) but, that’s not the case- it is the fault of “the developmental stage they're at. They aren't yet at that place where they're thinking about — or capable, necessarily, of thinking about the effects of their behavior on other people. That requires insight. And insight requires…a fully connected frontal lobe” (Knox,

2010).
Piaget’s theory of cognitive development can be used to analyze Lily. In the book, she was in the formal operations stages, that takes place from approximately 11 to 16 years. During this stage, as it can be seen from the 2011 Youtube video titled, “Piaget’s Stages of Development,” children begin to perform “hypothetical-deductive reasoning” as their pre-frontal cortex begins to develop: engaging themselves in abstract thinking, considering multiple aspects of an object or event at one time, predict the consequences if something went wrong, as well as analyze the properties of an object, characteristics of a person, or details about an event to derive conclusions about its nature or behavior and “could see the relationships between things” or phenomena (McLeod, 2013).
One of the challenges that Lily is facing in the book are: Lily needs a lot support from her family to pass her identity crisis. In the process of identity searching, Lily develops an ability of decision-making, when she must hold on and when she must to let go of certain things. Lily experiences throughout her life and her interactions with others, that she believes to be different from here, influence and determine her decisions. Lily must find an adult, whom she can trust and follow like August Boatwright, in order to create her identity as she transitions into adulthood. Unlike T. Ray, August loves to read books which is also Lily’s hobby- thus she was able to connect with August Boatwright. August Boatwright uses this common ground to inspire and motivate Lily by telling her stories about people who have faced their problems and as a result became strong personalities, Lily’s process of self-identification is a painful experience, but she eventually turns into a determined lady from an abused and emotionally confused teen.
If I were to work with Lily, I might be focusing on her weaknesses more rather than her strength as it has been proven through research that pre-adolescence anxiety can be a result of disorganized relationships in early childhood and also because “Bowlby theorized that securely attached children experience less anxiety than children [like Lily before she left her father’s house] who lack a secure base due to their ability to use a parent as a haven of safety in times of distress and confidence in the parent’s future availability.” I would have felt she needed other help that she might not even needed. I believe that coming from a different background (such as, a white neighborhood to a black neighborhood) might be a stressor but in Lily’s case- it clearly was not. I believe that Lily is still at risk of having “anxiety symptoms” as she had experienced “disorganized attachment relationships,” during early childhood when such relations are formed. Now she supported by the Boatwright sister, at some point in her life- she might not be guided by them and I am worried about how she will take the first step to create a relationship herself without someone else’s help. She still may “lack of a consistent strategy to cope with distress may leave fearful arousal unresolved” when she becomes an adult, thus “increasing the likelihood of experiencing anxiety” (Brumariu and Kerns, 2012). I personally have not been in Lily’s shoes- I did not have an abusive father nor did my mother passed away- I would not have been able to relate to Lily as much as I wish I would have been able to. I will try to talk with Lily more to find a common ground within us (which I did not find after reading the book) but if I do not find any- I would refer her to another social worker who might have experiences that are similar to Lily’s- because we all have secret lives like bees who noone else knows about except us. People’s lives are much more complex and complicated than they appear to be from outside- someones’ personality is the product of her life experiences, which are the product of the ways others treat him or her.