Character Analysis: The Secret Life Of Bees

Do you ever feel like you are holding someone back if they always have to worry about you? You may feel ashamed or you may not care if they worry for you. In the story, The Secret Life of Bees, Sue Monk Kidd indicates that the character, May, feels like she is holding everyone back. April’s death is a blow to May who starts acting like an immature child. The rest of her sisters, August and June, lived with May in the pink house due to their worry of her sensitivity and empathy towards others in pain. Since May is a sensitive person, all who know her are concerned about her constantly, including her two sisters, who was not able to move on with their lives. May was holding everyone back.

May is a loving, sensitive, and open person to everyone.

For instance, when August and May went to the paint store to buy paint, August wants to get her favorite color blue, but May decides she wants the Caribbean Pink color. Caribbean Pink was the tackiest color August had ever seen, but since it would to bring a bit of happiness to May, August decides to get it knowing that “[t]he hardest thing on earth is choosing what matters” (147). She wants what her heart desires but she’d rather help May recover. The same applies to June, she would have accepted helping Lily at the beginning when Lily first came to the pink house. Then, later June did not want her to stay any longer because she did not trust Lily and did not want Lily to cause any more trouble for the family because May will feel sorry for Lily. Before May’s death, May leaves a note saying she is “[t]ired of carrying around the weight of the world...It’s [her] time to die, and it’s [June’s and August’s] time to live. Don’t mess it up” (210). After reading that letter from May, June made a decision to get married and finally moves on with her life. August quits making and selling honey she decides to take care of Lily, Rosaleen, and the pink house. May knows she was holding them both back by having them continuously worrying for her instead of worrying for themselves and their

August and June understand May’s situation, so they wanted to help her not be sad all the time. While this may be true, in respect it is incorrect because when they help May, she feels ashamed of being a helpless person who cannot take care of her own problems. May does love being loved back, but not in a way where everyone has to worry about her and make sure she is not depressed. May wants everyone to worry about their own lives and future. She did not want everyone to change their life plans just to protect her and make her