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Loss of innocence
What made Lily want to change the secret life of bees
Loss of innocence narrative
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Final Essay Singer-songwriter, Bob Dylan said, “Behind every beautiful thing is some kind of pain.” In the book To Kill a Mockingbird, the character Scout, as well as the character Lilly from the book, The Secret Life of Bees had many examples that showed their loss of innocence. Lilly and Scout had to learn about the beauty and pain behind the things they didn’t understand. They grew up and lost a part of their childhood to understand the suffering of others. Scout and Lilly had to recognize the meaning of helping others and treating everyone equally. Actress, Audrey Hepburn said, “As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself, the other for helping others.” Lilly from the book, The Secret Life of …show more content…
Lilly knew racism was a thing, but she always tried to see through it. Lilly stood up to her abusive father, and she eventually escaped out of his house. She urged to find more about her mom and after a long journey, Lilly and Rosaleen finally landed on a twenty-eight-acre honey farm, which was run by three black sisters called “The Calendar Sisters”. Instantly, Lilly noticed something different about one of the sisters, May, who was extremely sensitive and prone to depression. Lilly helped May in every way she could. She occasionally sent her out to the Wailing Wall, May’s way of removing herself from uncomfortable situations, when needed. She helped the sisters daily with the farm, and she learned new things about helping others and working with different types of personalities. Lilly learned to care for the Boathouse sisters and The Daughters of Mary. August Boathouse said to Lilly, “Most people don’t have any idea about all the complicated life going on inside a hive. Bees have a secret life we don’t know anything about” (Kidd 148). Lilly soon learned that she didn’t know what others were going through and she needed to put herself in their shoes. She could only help them through the difficult times and support them in
Lily is a dynamic character who in the beginning is negative and unconfident. However, throughout the novel Lily starts to change into the forgiving person she is at the end. In the beginning of the novel, as the reader is first introduced to Lily’s character, she comes across as an extremely negative young girl. While thinking about one of Rosaleen’s crazy ideas, she thinks to herself, “people who think dying is the worst thing,” she tells the reader, “don’t know a thing about life” (2).
In life, actions and events that occur can sometimes have a greater meaning than originally thought. This is especially apparent in The Secret Life Of Bees, as Sue Monk Kidd symbolically uses objects like bees, hives, honey, and other beekeeping means to present new ideas about gender roles and social/community structures. This is done in Lily’s training to become a beekeeper, through August explaining how the hive operates with a queen, and through the experience Lily endures when the bees congregate around her.
As strong, independent, self-driven individuals, it is not surprising that Chris McCandless and Lily Owens constantly clashed with their parents. In Jon Krakauer’s novel, Into the Wild, Chris was a twenty-four-year-old man that decided to escape the materialistic world of his time for a life based on the simplistic beauty of nature. He graduated at the top of his class at Emory University and grew up in affluent Annandale, Virginia, during the early 1980’s. In The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, Lily was a fourteen-year-old girl who grew up in the 1960’s, a time when racial equality was a struggle. She had an intense desire to learn about her deceased mother. Her nanny, Rosaleen, with whom she grew very close over the years, raised Lily with little help from her abusive father. When her father failed to help Rosaleen after three white men hospitalized her, Lily was hysterical. Later, Lily decided to break Rosaleen out of the hospital and leave town for good. While there are differences between Chris McCandless and Lily Owens, they share striking similarities. Chris McCandless’ and Lily Owens’s inconsistencies of forgiveness with their parents resulted in damaged relationships and an escape into the unknown.
A poignant and touching classic, The Secret Life of Bees details the coming of age stories of a young girl named Lily. Her life up until the start of the novel was hard, she was friendless with an abusive father and a heavy conscience, as she believes that she is responsible for her mother’s death. Lily’s only solace is her stand-in-mother, a black woman named Rosaleen, so when Rosaleen is hauled to jail for standing up for herself, Lily decided to run away to a mysterious town that has some linkage to her mother. Her escapades lead her to three, wonderful, eclectic, devout followers of Mary, and to a new life. As the story unfolds, an elaborate symbol lies hidden just beneath the surface, one that seems so obvious, but only lies as a hidden
Lily’s biases in The Secret Life Of Bees have altered greatly; she now knows that people of color have the ability to fend for themselves, and that they can be strong and influential people. The most outstanding thing that has caused Lily’s biases to change is the Boatwright sisters. August Boatwright was the person that took Lily by surprise, Lily was raised with this false philosophy that because she was white, she was superior, more intelligent than African Americans. “At my school they made fun of colored people’s lips and noses. I myself laughed at these jokes, hoping to fit in.
Another theme present in the film is the importance of female community. Throughout the movie, the audience continually sees women together—for healing, for strength, and to learn to forgive and love. Each of the women is fierce and strong in their own way. Despite the fact that May Boatwright committed suicide, we still saw courageousness within her. Community is essential to women; it allows us the freedom to be who we truly are and to feel loved and protected. It should also be noted that beehives cared for by August, Lily, and Zach serve as a parallel to the community established by August. Beehives are female-dominated structures in which a queen bee is mother t...
Grief leaves an imprint on those who experience it. Some can survive its deep sorrow, others cannot. In The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd, she explores the effect of grief on the main characters. The novel opens with fourteen-year-old Lily Owns struggling with the knowledge that her mother was dead because she, as an infant, picked up a loaded gun and accidentally shot her. She runs away from her abusive father in search for answers of who her mother was. Lily hitchhikes to Tiburon, South Carolina; the location written on the back of an image of the Black Madonna – one of the only belongings she has of her mother’s. There, she finds a pink house inhabited by the Boatwright sisters who are African American women making Black Madonna honey. The Boatwright sisters have had their share of grief with the death of two of their sisters and the racial intolerance they face despite the passage of the Civil Rights Act. The Boatwright sisters and Lily Owens have different methods of coping with grief; internalizing, ignoring, and forgetting are some of the ways they cope, with varying degrees of success. They discover that they must live past their grief, or else it will tear them apart.
At age four, Lily Owens accidentally kills her mother in an act to help her. As she was handing her mother a gun, her mother dropped it. The gun then backfired on her and kills Lily’s mom. Lily is clearly traumatized by this event. As soon as Lily enters the Boatwright home, she is overcome with motherly love. Raub writes, “Upon settling into her new life in Tiburon, Lily finds motherly love where she did not expect it” (Raub 1). Some love is received from Rosaleen and August and the rest from the Black Madonna. Lily is also well received by the black sisterhood. “Lily enters a loving, compassionate world of the feminine divine, a black sisterhood grounded in worship of the Black Madonna” (Hamilton and Jones 2). August, one of the Boatwright sisters, becomes a mother figure to Lily. August is not only a mother to her, but as well, her spiritual mentor in the book. The Boatwright sisters love her in different ways. August lets Lily to open up and cry to her like a mother would. The Black Madonna was a major idea and religious feature in The Secret Life of Bees. “The Black Madonna, a symbol of freedom and consolation, wraps her veil of protection over the oppressed African American women and the abused Lily in the pink house” (Hebb 2). Lily is raised a Baptist and has hardly ever heard of the Mother of God, who only appears at Christmas in the Protestant doctrine. By the end of the summer, she has experienced the truth about what
The bees symbolize Lily’s unspoken guides throughout the novel. Kidd’s constant reference to the bees indicate that Lily eventually understands the importance of female power in the bee community, which she connects to her own life. When Lily initially sees the bees in her room, Rosaleen warns her that they can sting her if she tries to catch them, but Lily ignores her and continues to trap them, thus asserting her determination. Later, the bees reveal the message to Lily that she should leave her father. Kidd notes that one bee landed on Lily’s state map that she kept tacked on the wall, foreshadowing Lily and Rosaleen’s journey to Tiburon (10). The bees also symbolize the secret life that Lily lives as she hides her secret of running away from home. The hive represents society while the bees represent all of the humans inside. August tells Lily about the hives and announces, “Most people don’t have any idea about all the complicated life going on inside a hive. Bees have a secret life we don’t know anything about” (Kidd 148). The beehive cannot sur...
With an increase in familiarity, as she progresses her outlook on life changes with her. By the closure of The Secret Life of Bees, Lily Owens experiences passion, rage, joy, and sorrow in larger quantities than most teens her age. Amidst every trial transpires an improved
She spends hours in her house while taking care of May, her youngest sister, who suffers from a mental disorder. May often needs a lot of protection and monitoring since her traumatic episodes happen without notice. At all costs, looking after May makes August delightful because she is simply showing her sincere love. Whenever May has an episode, August bathes May and she advises May, “That’s right, May. Let all that misery slide right off you. Just let it go.” (Kidd, 89). Above all, this helps May to calm herself down as August’s recommendations are pleasing. Moreover, August owns a huge apiary that she genuinely adores. She works there as a full- time beekeeper and appreciates what she does for a living. While working Lily observes her, “...August hummed it when she pasted labels on the honey jars.” (Kidd, 83). The three blood sisters own a bee song that they sing when they are working around the bees. August hums it when she is vigorous to show her prosperity of being free. Also, August was able to afford the expenses of Lily and Rosaleen, Lily’s caregiver. Lily does not have money to pay for food or other necessaries so August uses her self-earned cash to aid her. In the long run, August’s success is due to having plenty of
The author George Elliot once said “don’t judge a book by its cover.” Appearance can be very misleading, and you shouldn't prejudge the worth or value of something by its outward appearance alone. This philosophical idea has been included in many works of literature, including the timeless classic To Kill a Mockingbird written by Harper Lee. The novel takes place in the town of Maycomb, Alabama during the 1930s. Many citizens of Maycomb tend to make judgements based on outward appearances alone. In the novel, Lee uses minor characters such as Boo Radley, Mrs. Dubose, and Tom Robinson to convey the book’s theme of prejudice.
In Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird, there is an abundance of minor characters. Three of these characters, Dill, Alexandra, and Calpurnia are especially significant because of the influence they had on Scout.
Martin Luther King once said, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” Sue Monk Kidd’s novel The Secret Life of Bees fully embodies his idea of equality, by introducing the story of a fourteen-year-old white girl named Lily Owens, who lives during the time of the Civil Rights Movement in South Carolina. Lily’s mother was killed in an accident when Lily is a little girl. Ever since, she lives with her father T-Ray, and her black surrogate mother, Rosaleen, in Sylvan, South Carolina. Soon after her fourteenth birthday, Lily escapes to the Boatwright sisters’ house in Tiburon, South Carolina, with Rosaleen, who is arrested for assaulting a white man. Upon her arrival, Lily faces different racist situations and meets her first love, a handsome black boy named Zach. The novel The Secret Life of Bees demonstrates that although racism has a negative impact on everyday life, it also influences Zach and Lily’s development in a positive manner.
Since I want to tell the whole truth, which means the worst parts, I thought they could be smart, but not as smart as me, me being white. Lying on the cot in the honey house, though, all I could think was August is so intelligent, so cultured, and I was surprised by this.” (Kidd.78). Meeting and interacting with August depicts how much involuntary prejudice she had inside of her that she was not previously aware of. Lily used this experience to learn how you can’t judge a person based off their race and made herself rethink her thoughts on African-American people.