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Raihaneh Pejoohesh
Mr. Lord
ENG2D7-02
July 28th / 2015
Racism and Prejudice in The Secret Life of Bees’ novel
Racism dates back thousands and thousands years back to the caveman times. In The Secret Life of Bees’ novel by Sue M. Kidd, the author shows how discrimination by skin colour can affect people. She sets racism as one of the most significant and major themes in the novel and she expresses this through creating three realistic characters who are Lily, Rosaleen and Zachary. These characters struggle with their own racism or they are encountering and facing racism throughout the entire novel even though the time in this novel was set after the Civil Right Act in 1964.
Lily, the protagonist of this novel and a white teenaged girl, is
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a racist girl at the beginnings of the novel. Lily lives with his father and she is once talking about her father’s attitude toward “coloured women” that didn’t seem smart to him and She thinks that she is smarter than all the black people too because she is white and they can never be as smart as her as she says,”… I thought they could be smart, but not as smart as me, me being white” (78). She lives with his father at the beginnings of the novel and it seems that she is a little racist and this attitude of Lily is because of her father, but her interactions with Boatwrights especially August, causes her to prove that her former thoughts about black people were actually wrong and black people can actually be very smart. In addition, Rosaleen, Lily’s nanny, is a black woman who has a job as a housekeeper in Lily’s house.
She encounters and faces racism in many cases even though the time in the novel was after Civil Right Act in 1964. Rosaleen was a strong and courageous black woman who even stands up against the racist men who once try to stop her and bully her in the way to register for vote. Rosaleen who is tired of racism and assaulting, spit on them and after refusing to clean her spit from them, the three men beat her so hard and one of the men says, “call to police” to send Rosaleen to jail (32). Finally police comes and says, “You are under arrest… Assault, theft, and disturbing the peace” to Rosaleen (33). So, as a black woman, Rosaleen experiences racism against her throughout the novel even though they she should be treated equally according to the new law of that …show more content…
time. Moreover, Zach is another black boy who is working with Lily in Boatwrights’ house and he experiences many prejudices along the novel.
Zach, Lily’s first crush, likes to become a lawyer, but as there is racism against black people and even there are less of black people who have good jobs Lily is surprised by hearing that and she says to Zach, “I’ve never heard of a Negro lawyer, that’s all. You got to hear of these things before you can imagine them… Bullshit. You gotta imagine what’s never been” (121). Zach also encounters with another case of racism in chapter nine. When one of Zach’s friends throw a bottle toward a white man, the white man calls police. Police asks Zach which one of you did that, Zach didn’t admit that one of his friends did that as Lily says, “He would never open his mouth. He was trying to say to me, I am sorry, but these are my friends” (179). So, police arrested all of the boys including Zach and they beat the boys so badly in the jail. That is an obvious example of racism against black people because if those were white boys throwing a bottle toward blacks, the police would have done nothing against them, but against black
boys. In conclusion, racism existed from a long time ago in the world. Sue M. Kidd’s novel, The Secret Life of Bees treats contentious issues of race in 1964 and the author has demonstrated to many racism cases on that time. She made racism as one of the most important themes of her novel as she created many realistic characters like Lily, Rosaleen and Zach to prove her point. These characters are being racist or facing racism in the novel and struggle to overcome and change the situation against it. Works cited
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
In The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd Lily has assumptions, biases, and prejudices about race that are changing over the course of the novel.
As this film is set in South Carolina during 1964 with a largely African-American cast, racism is certain to be a central theme. The Secret Life of Bees renders the idea of racism as illogical. Each of the Boatwright sisters, Rosaleen, Zach, and the minor African-American characters are depicted with dignity that was reserved only for Caucasians during that time. While Lily’s racism does not manifest itself in the same manner as the men who harass her housekeeper, Rosaleen, back home, she is still prejudiced at the film’s start, Lily just assumes that all African Americans are uneducated because that is how Rosaleen is; however, she quickly learns that is not the case. The Boatwright sisters prove to be just as unique and more intelligent, strong, and bold than anyone else she knows.
“It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters in the end.” -Ernest Hemingway. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd is a coming-of-age novel written in the form of first person, using the internal monologue of a tween girl named Lily who lives in the very hostile, racist environment of South Carolina in the 1960’s. Lily lives in a household with her African American maid and only friend, Rosaleen, and her abusive father, T. Ray, who informs Lily that she was the one who killed her deceased mother as a child. In a search to find clues that deny this claim, Lily and Rosaleen set out to Tiburon, SC, a place her mother has indicated on the back of an unusual picture of a Black Madonna. The basis of the novel
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.
Themes such as motherhood, racism, and the bees’ hardwork are included in The Secret Life of Bees,written by Susan Monk Kidd, in order to show and highlight the hard times that the each character faced. This novel highlights Lily’s path from a child to young adult. She now sees with more clarity in subjects of racism and her new family. Her path started innocent and uneducated and ended up being very whole and educated. In Lily’s growth throughout this novel, her trials and tribulations were shown. In The Secret Life of Bees, there are many words and phrases referenced and used that stay full of wisdom, courage, and female
Ruth, Elizabeth. “The Secret Life of Bees Traces the Growth of Lily’s Social Consciousness.” Coming of Age in Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees. Ed. Dedria Bryfonski. Detroit: Greenhaven, 2013. 63-65. Print. Social Issues in Literature. Rpt. of “Secret Life of Bees.” The Globe and Mail 2 Mar. 2002: n. pag.
For example, in the novel it says, “Mr. Tate Found his neck and rubbed it. “Bob Ewell’s lyin’ on the ground under that tree down yonder with a kitchen knife stuck up under his ribs. He’s dead, Mr. Finch.”(266) If he would have let it go and not accused Tom Robinson for something he did not do, he would have had a longer life. Bob Ewell did not even have to get mad at the Finch family because Tom Robinson was found guilty. He won the trial so there was nothing to be mad about, certainly nothing to lose his life over. Mayella has also had her life changed because of racism. In To Kill A Mockingbird, Mayella tries to get Tom Robinson to kiss her because she had never kissed anyone besides what her dad does to her (194). Mayella was so lonely that she went against her family’s opinion and tried to kiss a black man. She never got any help from anyone in her family, which is why she asked Tom to do work around the house in the first place. She never told anyone what her dad did to her. She also helped put Tom Robinson, the man she tried to kiss, in jail. Racism changed the lives of many characters throughout the
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.
Although bigotry and segregation were pointed in majority towards blacks, other accounts towards whites were also heard of, though not as commonly. There are acts that are so discreet that you almost don't catch them, but along with those, there are blatant acts of bigotry that would never occur in our time. Lee addresses many of these feelings in her novel. One subtle example of discrimination the reader sees is the treatment of Calpurnia, a black woman, the housekeeper/nanny for the Finch family. Although she is treated fairly, it is obvious that she is considered to be on a lower social level than the Finches.
Because of the laws against colored people, Rosaleen, as a black woman, lives with constraints in her life. For example, she cannot live in a house with white people (Kidd, p.8), she cannot represent Lily at the charm school (Kidd, p.19), or even travel in a car with white people (Kidd, p.76). The media is also influenced by racism, and constantly shows news about segregation such as the case of Martin Luther King, who is arrested because he wants to eat in a restaurant (Kidd, p.35), the “man in Mississippi was killed for registering to vote” (Kidd, p.44), and the motel in Jackson, that closes, because the owners don’t want to rent rooms to black people (Kidd, p.99).... ... middle of paper ...
Lily has a lot of mother figures in her life. In ?The Secret Life of Bees? two mother figures that she has are Rosaleen and August. A mother cares for her young and guides them trough life. She comforts and soothes them when they need it. Lily?s Mothers are Rosaleen and August. Both act as mothers for Lily in different ways.
In the novel, The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, a teenage girl by the name of Lily Owens, has lived a rough life under the care of her angry and abusive father, T. Ray. Lily accidentally shot and killed her mother when she was a young child. She spends a lot of time reflecting on this blurred memory of her mother, Deborah Owens, whom she loved. Although she deeply misses and longs for her mother's company, Lily, finds solace and peace through symbols used throughout the novel. Kidd, uses many significant symbols such as beehives, photographs, and The black Mary, to help Lily through her tough times.