Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
The secret life of bees theme essay
Secret life of bees literary devices
The secret life of bees theme essay
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: The secret life of bees theme essay
From Broken to Healing June felt as if the world was against her causing her to fall into a deep misery. The Secret Life of Bees takes place in the quaint, little town of Tiburon, South Carolina. Sue Monk Kidd creatively describes June as a hurting young woman, using her pain to exclude herself from the world dying to know her. As June learns to forgive and gain a new trust in others, she also learns to overcome her judgment. After learning to trust and accept, she learns also to love others for who they are. Despite facing pain to on the road to finding forgiveness and love, June finally understands there is more to life than living in the pain of the past. Hurt seems to bar June from trusting others. Trust, as in having a confidence in …show more content…
It started out with Deborah staying with them when she was struggling. This caused her to also resent Lily remembering how her sister August had worked for her mother, Deborah, when she was little. “‘She couldn’t get over me working as a maid in your mother’s house.’” (Kidd 242) Therefore June took out all the pain and hate on Lily. She also judged Lily because of the colour of her skin. June objected to August allowing Lily to stay basically saying she was white and she didn’t want a sassy, runaway, white girl living with them. (Kidd 87) June continually showed Lily she was not welcome in her heart. When they had their Daughter’s of Mary meeting June again showed Lily this again by causing her to feel like she did not belong. “But just as I was about to reach her[Mary], June stopped playing.” (Kidd 111) Lily kept hurting, but so did June. Eventually, June started to warm up to Lily being among them. At one point August and Lily come home to screaming. Instead of something terrible they find May and Rosaleen having a water fight. June then comes out of the house and tells them to shut up. Surprisingly when Lily sprays her with the hose. After fighting for the hose for a while,“She [June] let go and sprawled back on the grass in convulsions of laughter. I [Lily] plopped down next to her and laughed, too. We could not stop. I wasn’t exactly sure of everything we were laughing about I was just glad we were doing it together...and then, to my shock, she hugged me.” (Kidd 169) Despite how long it took, June finally lets go of the grudge she had against her. June then continues to welcome Lily in as one of them. “‘But even June came around to loving you didn’t she?[Lily asked August]’” (Kidd 242) June continually changes, learning the importance of love and
Throughout The Secret Life of Bees , there is no shortage of symbolism, coming directly from its namesake, bees. Each connection draws upon the deep and rich meaning behind this wonderful composed text. The bees, however, never are a scapegoat. Similar to Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird character Atticus, they never allow for shortcuts or disillusion with reality. They force you to see the world as it is, and to accept it, and send love to it, for it is all you can, when you are as insignificant as a
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. Lily was raised in an extremely racist environment with T. Ray in Sylvan. Her mother figure and her best friend were harassed just walking down the street. Even the church folks who claim to love, but I guess African-Americans didn’t count. She also had to break Rosaleen, the woman who played the mother figure in her life, out of jail.
First, Kidd highlights the power of strength through indirectly characterizing Lily as a courageous young woman to display the character’s growing maturity throughout the novel. Her courageousness is demonstrated after T Ray, Lily’s father, picks her up from jail. Upon arriving home, it is clear that Lily is displeased about how T Ray handled the situation. Vexed and irritated, she challenges him: “‘You don’t scare me,’ I repeated, louder this time. A brazen feeling had broken loose in me, a daring something that had been locked up in my chest’” (38). Even though Lily knows that disrespecting her father will mean terrible consequences, kneeling on Martha White grits, she proceeds
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.
When the book begins, Lily is depressed and guilt-ridden over the loss of her mother and her father T. Ray’s cold and abusive behavior. These are symptoms of queenlessness, a hive in chaos. “The queen...is the unifying force of the community; if she is removed...the workers very quickly sense her absence. After a few hours...they show unmistakable signs of queenlessness” (Kidd 1). Without Deborah in the house, Lily and T. Ray suffered and the distance between them grew. Without a queen bee to give them a direction, they had no sense of community. Lily and T. Ray did not work together to prosper, and neither could function at their full
At age four, Lily Owens accidentally kills her mother in an act to help her. As she was handing her mother a gun, her mother dropped it. The gun then backfired on her and kills Lily’s mom. Lily is clearly traumatized by this event. As soon as Lily enters the Boatwright home, she is overcome with motherly love. Raub writes, “Upon settling into her new life in Tiburon, Lily finds motherly love where she did not expect it” (Raub 1). Some love is received from Rosaleen and August and the rest from the Black Madonna. Lily is also well received by the black sisterhood. “Lily enters a loving, compassionate world of the feminine divine, a black sisterhood grounded in worship of the Black Madonna” (Hamilton and Jones 2). August, one of the Boatwright sisters, becomes a mother figure to Lily. August is not only a mother to her, but as well, her spiritual mentor in the book. The Boatwright sisters love her in different ways. August lets Lily to open up and cry to her like a mother would. The Black Madonna was a major idea and religious feature in The Secret Life of Bees. “The Black Madonna, a symbol of freedom and consolation, wraps her veil of protection over the oppressed African American women and the abused Lily in the pink house” (Hebb 2). Lily is raised a Baptist and has hardly ever heard of the Mother of God, who only appears at Christmas in the Protestant doctrine. By the end of the summer, she has experienced the truth about what
Intro: Working around the hives; dedicated and faster with each movement. Honey drizzling in golden crevices; a family unit working together, buzzing in harmony. Bees and beehives is a significant motif in the novel Secret Life of Bees: By Sue Monk Kidd because it represents the community of women in the novel. It also represents Lily Owen’s longing and need for a mother figure in her life. And finally, it was significant because the bees lived a secret life, just as Lily and Rosaleen did in the novel.
For example, T. Ray punishes Lily by making her kneel on grits and verbally abuses her. Lily resents T. Ray for his brutality and gains the desire to flee her birth home. This shows that Lily desires more than just a physical house to live in, but also loving parental figures who can help guide her in life and show her love. This quest for acceptance led her to meet the Calendar Sisters.
The setting in the Secret life of bees helps set the overall structure of the book. As the setting changes, and certain events take place, so does the characters views on life. The most change seen is on Lily, the main character. Her values multiply and her perspective on cultural order shifts from one mind set to another. Although one part of the book’s setting limits the opportunities of the characters; the other part opens those and different opportunities. The setting in The Secret Life of Bees is vitally important because it impacts the main character and the people around her through events that transpire in the book.
In The Secret Life of Bees, written by Sue Monk Kidd, Lily lacks a mother figure in her life, which leads her on a compelling journey as she desperately searches for answers about her true mother. Her abusive father, T. Ray, causes Lily to run away along with Rosaleen, the housekeeper. They are led to the Boatwright household by one of the few things Lily still possesses from her mother, a Black Madonna Honey label. Lily is given the opportunity to create a mother-daughter type bond between her and the Boatwright sisters. August, one of the sisters, acts as the “queen bee” throughout the story. August teaches Lily that a mother does not have to be someone who you share blood with, but rather, a mother is
Ray also has strong prejudice. In the house, T. Ray often mentions Lily “colored women [are not] smart” (78). As a result it affects Lily’s sensibility, because she says, “I thought they could be smart, but not as smart as me, me being white” (78). Also T. Ray often calls black people ‘nigger’ which we should never. When Lily and Rosaleen; her housekeeper went to the town, they got into the trouble and T. Ray picked Lily up and blames her. “…Couldn’t pick somebody normal? He’s the meanest nigger-hater in Sylvan…” (38). Additionally, when T. Ray comes to try to take her back in Sylvan, he says, “So you’ve been here the whole time, staying with colored women Jesus Christ” (291), like it is a bad thing to stay with them, because it doesn’t necessary to mention people’s race at that circumstance. Even though Lily was trying not to influence by T. Ray, she has some racism inside of her
Over the course of several months, August guides, teaches, and helps Lily to accept and forgive herself. August once knew Deborah, and she knows that Lily is her daughter, but she does not confront Lily about the issue. Instead, she waits until Lily puts the puzzle pieces together and discovers for herself the relationship between her mother and August. August knows she is not ready to learn the truth about her mother when she and Lily first meet, so she waits for Lily to come to her. When Lily finally realizes the truth, she comes to August and they have a long discussion about Deborah. During this discussion, Lily learns the truth about her mother; that her mother only married T. Ray because she was pregnant with Lily, then after several years she had enough of living and dealing with T. Ray, so she left. Lily is disgusted by the fact that her mother would've done something like this, she did not want to let go of the romantic image of her mother she had painted in her mind (“‘The Secret Life of Bees’ Themes and Symbols of The Secret Life of Bees). Lily struggles to stomach the fact the her mother truly did leave her and she spends some time feeling hurt and angry, but one day, August shows her a picture of Lily and her mother. As Lily looks at the picture she is comforted and thinks, “May must’ve made it to heaven and explained to my mother about the sign I wanted. The one that would let me know I was loved” (Kidd 276). Seeing
Ray and her nanny, Rosaleen. T. Ray has told Lily that she is the one that killed her mother when she was four years old, but Lily does not believe her father and wants to find the real truth. Lily leaves Sylvan, South Carolina so she can find out more information about her mother; this is when she finds the Boatwright sisters and her life is changed.
August was correct when she said that Lily must be her own mother. Lily will not always have someone to care for her. If this happens she must learn to care for herself. Lily was also relying too much on the statue of Mary. When the statue of Mary was chained up Lily could not go to her for help.
...er learned from Lily how to cook, wash clothes, and how to clean the house. These girls learned from each other without realizing it, and had created even more of a special bond with one another than they thought. After both of the girls had gotten married and had children, the two girls did not see each other as much. Because of nu shu they were able to keep and touch and learn what was going on in their lives. “You who always knew my heart now fly above the clouds in the warmth of the sun. I hope one day we will soar together” (321). Lily wrote these words on her final entry on her fan after Snow Flower’s death. Through all of the lies Snow Flower told Lily, she still loved her and the bond they had together for eternity. Together as laotongs, the girls overcame obstacles, learned from each other, and created an eternal both between women throughout this novel.