Rhetorical Analysis: The Secret Life Of Bees

“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

is following Lily’s journey in finding her own inner strength and love through traces of her departed mother and with the help of many strong black women she encounters. Kidd uses powerful rhetorical and narrative devices, such as reflection, metaphor, and imagery to develop Lily as a character and add depth to her struggles throughout the entirety of her journey and the novel.
Reflection is a prominent rhetorical technique Kidd uses throughout the novel to provide insight into Lily’s thoughts and expressions about a certain event or incident that has occurred along the way of her journey to self love and inner strength.

At the start of the novel, a general understanding of Lily’s life is explained, giving knowledge about T.Ray, Rosaleen, and her mother, Deborah. Lily describes the little she is able to remember about her mother's death as she was only four years old at the time. A nasty fight had broken out between T.Ray and Deborah, leaving a frightened Lily to be tossed around between the two. A gun had appeared on scene and in an attempt to save her mother, Lily got involved. In a remembrance of this chilling day, Lily reflects, “What is left lies in clear yet disjointed pieces in my head. The gun shining like a toy in her hand, how she snatched it away and waved it around. The gun on the floor. Bending to pick it up. The noise that exploded around us. This is what I know about myself. She was all I wanted. And I took her away” (Kidd 7-8). Through reflection, a very heartbroken Lily is able to convey what happened on that dreadful day when her mother died in her own thoughts and beliefs. As a result of this event, Lily begins to carry an immense amount of grief and guilt around as well as losing herself into these bad memories and feelings. Her self love is depleted and her mother is gone, leaving her with T.Ray and her new mother figure,

Rosaleen. Lily is unable to receive the care she needs in this household, providing her with the ignition to depart on her journey. Including this reflection at the start of the book allows Kidd to create a certain extent of understanding of the events that helped Lily begin her journey and add insight into Lily as a character right from the beginning.
A metaphor is a narrative technique Kidd applies to the text in order to make a hidden comparision between two ideas, people, or things that are unrelated, but share common characteristics. Lily leaves home, running away with Rosaleen, attempting to start a new life. She changes her and Rosaleen’s last names and creates a fake story on why they are in Tiburon.
Right at the heart of the book, Lily finds herself in the Boatwright household where the three African American Boatwright sisters influence Lily’s life a great deal, August especially.
Lily is not quite ready to share the little information she understands about her mother as she does not know if the Boatwright’s ever knew Deborah. As the lies pile on, Lily’s burden and grief only grow larger and larger. Upon their arrival, Rosaleen helps May in the kitchen and Lily begins to learn about beekeeping from August. She acquires knowledge about the bees fascinating culture and life from August, which in turn gives Lily something to relate to her troublesome life. When she is taught some interesting, mostly unknown facts about the bees, Lily creates this metaphor in her thoughts, “I loved the idea of the bees having a secret life, just like the one I was living” (148). Lily is in fact a white runaway girl living in a household with black women and carries the weight of the world on her shoulders between her own secrets and the burdens she carry from her previous “life”. In comparison to the bees, Lily’s private thoughts are unbeknownst to the people living in her new world, except Rosaleen. Adding this technique to the middle of the novel allows Kidd to add another dimension to Lily’s character by comparing her complicated life to the secluded, underestimated life of the bees.
Imagery is a strong, widely used narrative technique in the book that uses descriptive words to create a visual representation of objects, actions, and ideas in such a way that appeals to the senses and generates a mental picture.

Lily is finally able to let go of the burdens she holds as her trust for August grows. She is able to come clean to August about all the lies and explains the real reason her and Rosaleen are in Tiburon. As the true story of Deborah unfolds, August is able to finally understand the troubles Lily face and how depleted the young girl is. With the help of August and all of the other influential black women Lily encounters along this journey, she is finally able to release her burdens and believe in the strength she possesses within. The last scene of the novel includes this powerful imagery of Lily’s new life, “I go back to that one moment when I stood in the driveway with small rocks and clumps of dirt around my feet and looked back at the porch. And there they were. All these mothers… They are the moons shining over me” (302). It is clear Lily can now grow and develop as the young woman she has always yearned to become with these important new women in her life there to guide her and be her supporters. They have shown Lily that she needs to be her own number one provider of love and strength, but as seen in this imagery, they will always be there when she needs them. By using this technique at the end of the book, Kidd is able to wrap Lily’s

journey up nicely and show her transition into her new life with her additional influential mother figures as she lets go of the pain and suffering of her past.