Kimberly Willis Holt, a famous author, once said, “Although I sometimes enjoy writing from an adult's perspective, I feel dedicated to the coming of age story - that part of a young person's life where he must make a decision that will change his life forever.” Coming of age is the process of maturing into an adult through undergoing passages thought to be fundamental to the human experience. This idea is made up of several types of experiences. Two of these important elements are the perception of parents and dealing with loss. In the book, “The Secret Life of Bees”, the main character, Lily Owens, learns about her mother’s past. This forever changes how Lily thinks about her mother, and mirrors how people’s perception of their parents changes …show more content…
As a person develops, they learn to cope with grief, often undergoing several stages. The first of these is denial, as explained in a medically reviewed article titled, “Stages of Grief”. The text describes denial by stating, “You might not believe that your loved one has really died or perhaps the news hasn’t really sunk in yet. Denial is a common defense mechanism that gives you time to absorb what has happened” (Lawrenz par 1). This might seem impossible, but denial is a very real and very common way to deal with loss, especially when a person is young. This can be seen in the story, The Scarlet Ibis by James Hurst, where the narrator loses his brother. Throughout the story, the narrator struggles with embarrassment about his brother Doodle’s medical condition. Eventually, he leaves Doodle in the rain, where Doodle gets trapped under a tree and dies. So, at the beginning of the story, the narrator was resentful of his brother, but at the end, he learned (too late) that Doodle was a person he loved. When Doodle dies, the first thing the narrator does is deny it, but then a reader can see his growth. The author wrote, “I screamed above the pounding storm, and threw my body to the earth above him. For a long, long time, it seemed forever, I lay there crying, sheltering my fallen scarlet ibis from the heresy of rain” (Hurst 8). This quote demonstrates the narrator’s last-ditch effort to save his brother by shielding the boy with his body. Instead of anger, all the narrator felt was pain, which shows how he finally appreciated his brother. This shows how sometimes it takes a death for a person to fully appreciate life. Learning to appreciate those a person used to have demonstrates how loss is a coming-of-age process. As a person gets older, they learn how to better control their grief and appreciate the
Most runaway youth are homeless because of neglect, abuse and violence, not because of choice. Lily Owens is the protagonist in the novel, Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd, is no different. Lily is a fourteen year-old girl still grieving over her mother's death. T. Ray a man who has never been able to live up to the title of a father, due to years of abuse, has not made it any easier. 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 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.
People share their secret lives without even talking about them. It only takes a glance or feeling to see that others have faced similar situations and problems, some people even live parallel lives. Despite the fact that many people believe it impossible for a measly insect, like a bee, to know the pain hardships a human faces, Sue Monk Kidd proves them wrong with her book The Secret Life of Bees. In her novel she derives many of her characters from the types of bees that exist in a hive. Lily and Zach have characteristic that are akin to that of field bees, August has that nurturing personality of a nurse bee, and the Lady of Chains is revered by her subjects just like a Queen bee is by her hive. Nowadays, no one ever faces a problem that someone, or something, has already faced. No one really has a secret life all to themselves.
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
Do you ever wonder how much you have changed in the past year? Not just physically, but in every aspect. Lily Owens in The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd matures throughout the novel. Lily Owens matures because of her spiritual development. Also, she matures because of her social consciousness and her relationship with Zach. Sue Monk Kidd portrays the theme “coming of age” as difficult in The Secret Life of Bees.
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.
This “home” that she finds brightly displays the ideas of identity and feminine society. Though Lily could not find these attributes with T. Ray at the peach house, she eventually learns the truth behind her identity at the pink house, where she discovers the locus of identity that resides within herself and among the feminine community there. Just like in any coming-of-age story, Lily uncovers the true meaning of womanhood and her true self, allowing her to blossom among the feminine influence that surrounds her at the pink house. Lily finds acceptance among the Daughters of Mary, highlighting the larger meaning of acceptance and identity in the novel. The meaning behind Sonsyrea Tate’s statement can be found deeply rooted within Sue Monk Kidd’s novel, The Secret Life of Bees.
Heart break, joy, love, happiness, The Book The Secret Life of Bees has it all! The book is about a young girls that accidentally shot her mother. After spending nine years with her abusive, and emotionally absent father, she decides to run away. So, she breaks her beloved nanny out of prison, and Lily escapes to Tiburon South Carolina, a town she links to her mother through the writing on one of her old possessions. While in Tiburon, Lily finds the calendar sisters three very different, very helpful sisters. The family agrees to take Lilly in, despite the fact that almost every white person in town frowns upon the very idea of this white girl staying in an African American household. While staying with the sisters, August, May, and June, Lily learns lots of things, ranging from bee keeping, to why and how her mother first left her. She falls in love, explores her past, and finds it within herself to forgive her mother for leaving her, and herself, for shooting her mom. This book is rich in both emotion, and culture.
The Secret Life of Bees delineates an inspirational story in which the community, friendship and faith guide the human spirit to overcome anything. The story follows Lily Owens, a 14 year old girl who desperately wants to discover the cause of her mothers death. Her father T. Ray gives her no answers, which leads their maid, Rosaleen, to act as her guardian. Together, Lily and Rosaleen run away to Tiburon, South Carolina and find a welcoming community. It is in Tiburon that Lily learns many life lessons, including many about herself. In her novel The Secret Life of Bees, Sue Monk Kidd explores a theme of spiritual growth through Lily's search for home as well as a maternal figure.
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
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd is a story about racial struggle between black and white in 1964, which is in the middle of the civil right movement in South Carolina. The narrator and protagonist of the story named Lily raised by T. Ray, her father, who has bias towards black people at all time. Due to the fact that T. Ray often says something regards to racial discrimination, Lily starts to thinks that whites are superior than the others unconsciously. Also Lily was not aware that she is being an unconscious racism because of T. Ray until she starts to live with Boatwright sisters who are black. T. Ray often takes his anger out on Lily since Deborah left the house and it trigged abuses and ignores Lily. Moreover, though T. Ray treats Lily so badly, he seems like and acts like he doesn’t care. In other words, it was impossible to feel any humanity in T. Ray. One of the most important and influential characters named T. Ray is prejudiced, violent and cruel person.
Finally, the novel The Secret life of Bees demonstrates the emotional maturity, and growth of the both Lily and Zach, during times of systematic racism. The novel authentically represents Civil Rights Movement’s time, and makes us realize how spiritually sad and dangerous these times were.
Secret Life of Bees Essay The fear of the unknown is fundamental to humanity. It drives people to act, to lash out at the terrifying unpredictability that comes with living. Lily, the protagonist of the acclaimed book, the Secret Life of Bees, exemplifies this throughout the story. The Secret Life of Bees tells the story of 14-year-old Lily Owens, who escapes to Tiburon, South Carolina, with her Black caretaker Rosaleen in order to run away from her cruel father. Desiring to find the truth about her mother, Lily stays with the Boatwright Sisters, a Black trio of sisters whom she suspects can lead her to the truth.
Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees traces the psychological development of a young white girl named Lily. The novel is told from the white girl’s perspective. It begins with Lily’s mourning the death of her mother, Deborah. She lives in a permanent loss blaming herself for shooting her mother. She lives in Sylvan, South Carolina, with her abusive father, T. Ray, and their housekeeper, Rosaleen.
The Secret Life of Bees presents a captivating story that dives into race, religion, and family ties in the southern United States circa 1950. Characters from all backgrounds, races, and religions become intertwined throughout the duration of the text, while learning importance lessons about acceptance and love. Despite the diversity amongst the many characters, the specific recurring image of the “Black Mary” creates and holds the bonds between Tiburon’s men and women, and provides a symbol of hope for those in need of a dream. The reader is first introduced to the image of the Black Mary following Lily’s recount through her mother’s belongings.