The Secret Life Of Bees Literary Analysis

I read The Secret Life of Bees about a girl named Lily who ran away from home with hopes of finding out more about her mother before she had accidently shot her. She only had an old picture she had found in her mom’s stuff of a black Virgin Mary with the name of a city on the back as a clue as where to go. When you finally finds where the picture comes from she stays at a nice woman’s house named August. One of the themes of the book is forgiveness, throughout the book Lily must learn to forgive herself for killing her mom, her mom for leaving her behind, and her dad for not always being there for her. Lily had to find the strength to forgive in order to move on from her past and not live in self-pity because of what she did and what others

T. Ray had never been a good dad or role model for Lily and had always made her feel like she was simply a burden for him. Lily always hated to fact that he was always mad with her and never talked about her mother and when he did it was negatively. Lily runs away primarily to get away from him and all his lies that he always told her about her mother. He would make her kneel on grits when he got mad at her and was always mad and upset at her. Although he is not there throughout most of the book he is always on the back of Lily’s mind thinking whether or not he even cares she’s gone. She is mad at him for not telling her everything about her mother and pretending that he mother never even existed. When he finds her at August’s house he is furious and starts to hit her and mistakes her for her mother. He wants to know why she ran away but not just her but also why her mother ran away, “How dare you leave me! You need a lesson, is what you need!” This is when Lily realizes that her dad never got closure to why her mother left and that he too had feelings. He decides to let Lily stay with August and she realizes that it’s not because he doesn’t care but because he cares and wants what’s best for