Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life Of Bees

Most people think of bees as small, pesky creatures that sting you, or as the important insect that allows our plants to grow. However, Sue Monk Kidd takes these small insects and turns them into much more in The Secret Life of Bees. The Secret Life of Bees is set in 1964 in South Carolina. The main character, Lily, is a troubled thirteen-year-old girl with a dead mother and an abusive father, which leads her to wonder if anyone really loved her. When her “stand-in mother” Rosaleen is arrested they escape to the town of Tiburon, South Carolina where they find the bee keeping Boatwright sisters August, June, and May. The bees in The Secret Life of Bees represent more than insects, they symbolize Lily’s deepest feelings, her need for a mother,

and her relationship towards her father, who she calls T. Ray and her home in Sylvan, South Carolina.

Lily is a very complex character, but most of her feelings can be compared to that of a bees. When we first meet Lily we learn about her relationship towards her parents, one being dead and the other one being abusive. This soon convinces Lily to run away from home and she then meets the August, June, and May. When August is telling Lily how to act around bees she says, “‘Act like you know what you’re doing, even if you don’t. Above all, send the bees love. Every little thing wants to be loved.’” (Kidd 92) Due to Lily’s relationship towards other people she wonders if anyone truly loves her. However, she never openly expresses this feeling to anyone until the end of the book when she confesses herself to August, “Kneeling on the floor, unable to stop shuddering, I heard it plainly. It said, You are unlovable, Lily Owens. Unlovable. Who could love you? Who in this world could ever love you? I sank farther down, onto my heels, hardly aware of myself mumbling the words out loud. ‘I am unlovable.’” (Kidd 242) One of the big parts of Lily in the story is her need to be loved, just like a bee. As August said that, just like a bee, every little things needs and wants to be loved. Before, Lily was not receiving any love her and throughout some parts of the story she mistakes this for a longing for her mother. Though, there is that problem in the book too. It isn’t till the ending of the book that Lily finally receives love and is able to tell August her deepest feelings. Just like a bee Lily needed to be loved.

Throughout the book the reader is shown how the death of Lily’s mother has gravely affected her.

It was Lily who accidentally killed her mother and T. Ray led her to believe that her mother never wanted her. The death of Lily’s mother and the effect of that on her can be symbolized by a beehive when their queen dies. When one of August’s beehives loses their queen she brings Lily out to show her, “‘I discovered it yesterday. The bees were sitting out here on the loading board looking melancholy. If you see bees loafing and lamenting, you can bet their queen is dead… I want to get the hive requeened before one of the workers start laying eggs.’” (Kidd 287-286) As August explained to Lily, whenever the queen dies in a hive the workers bees do not know what to do. When Lily’s mom died she also went through life like a mindless worker bee. She didn’t try to replace her mother, she just lived with the guilt. When a hive’s queen dies all order is destroyed, but they can be introduced to a new queen and all will be back to normal. Likewise, when Lily is introduced to the Boatswrights and Black Mary it is as if she had been given a new queen bee to replace her

mother.

Another way that Lily is like a bee is with her relationship with her father and her home in Sylvan, South Carolina.

At the very beginning of the book Lily describes how a swarm of bees came into her room late at night. When she tries to tell T. Ray about the event but he dismissed it as some kind of joke. In hopes of proving T. Ray wrong, Lily catches some bees in a mason jar to show him. After she concludes that she must let the bees go the bees only, “remained there, like planes on a runway not knowing been cleared for takeoff. They crawled on their stalk legs around the curved perimeters of the glass as if the world had shrunk to that jar. I tapped the glass, even laid the jar on its side, but those crazy bees stayed put.” (Kidd 28) The bees, at first, didn’t realize that their jar was open and they could leave. This same problem happened to Lily, she did not know her jar was open, “You could say I’d never had a true religious moment… But I had such a moment right then, standing in my own ordinary room. I heard a voice say, Lily Melissa Owens, your jar is open.” (Kidd 41) Lily had been stuck in her own “jar”, which was her relationship with T. Ray and her home in Sylvan. She thought all her life that it was just how it was supposed to be. She never realized that she was trapped in a “jar”, or that her jar had been open. When she did notice that her “jar was open”, she escaped with Rosaleen to Tiburon where she found the Boatwrights. Not only can the jar symbolism be

connected to Lily’s life, but also others around her. Most people, just like Lily and the bees, do not know they are being restricted by their own invisible jar.

Lily’s deepest feelings, need for a mother, and her relationship with T. Ray and her home in Sylvan, South Carolina can all be symbolized by bees and how they act. Just like a bee Lily wanted to be loved, just like a bee she needed a queen, and just like a bee she was trapped in her own invisible jar. Bees may seem like small little insects that sting you and pollinate flowers, but in The Secret Life of Bees they mean much more.