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In “The Secret Life of Bees” by Sue Monk Kidd we see a young troubled Lily Owens who longs for answers about her mother and that maternal love which she never received. Lily blossoms from a fragile hurt little girl into and strong and independent young woman with the help of the Boatwright sisters. The major themes shown throughout the book are a longing for maternal love and the power and strength of female community. Throughout the story Lily has a void in her life which she so desperately needs filled and that void is her longing for maternal love and answers about her mother who died when Lily was only a young child. It is clear that Lily is unhappy in Sylvan where she lives with her abusive and unloving father T. Ray and after seeing her caregiver Rosaleen stand up to the three most racist men in Sylvan she bundles up the courage to break Rosaleen out of jail and runaway. She remembers the picture of the black Mary which belonged to her mother with “Tiburon, South Carolina” written on the back and decides to escape there in hope to find out the secrets of her mothers past. “I a...
In the beginning of the novel, as the reader is first introduced to Lily’s character, she comes across as an extremely negative young girl. While thinking about
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.
People share their secret lives without even talking about them. It only takes a glance or feeling to see that others have faced similar situations and problems, some people even live parallel lives. Despite the fact that many people believe it impossible for a measly insect, like a bee, to know the pain hardships a human faces, Sue Monk Kidd proves them wrong with her book The Secret Life of Bees. In her novel she derives many of her characters from the types of bees that exist in a hive. Lily and Zach have characteristic that are akin to that of field bees, August has that nurturing personality of a nurse bee, and the Lady of Chains is revered by her subjects just like a Queen bee is by her hive. Nowadays, no one ever faces a problem that someone, or something, has already faced. No one really has a secret life all to themselves.
Lily expresses that a black Mary was never mentioned in her church. This explains the prejudice in the world and how it has always been that way. Lily begins to reflect on why her mother held a picture of a Black Mary. The Black Mary will lead her to the Boatwrights where she finds out how powerful the Black Mary
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
The first example of Lily’s coming of age is in her spiritual development. She is introduced to the Daughters of Mary, who connect her to the Black Madonna. When Lily first sees the Black Madonna, she thought that:
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.
Lily’s idea of home is having loving parent/mother figures who can help guide her in life. Because of this desire, she leaves T. Ray and begins to search for her true identity. This quest for acceptance leads her to meet the Calendar Sisters. This “home” that she finds brightly displays the ideas of identity and feminine society. Though Lily could not find these attributes with T. Ray at the peach house, she eventually learns the truth behind her identity at the pink house, where she discovers the locus of identity that resides within herself and among the feminine community there. Just like in any coming-of-age story, Lily uncovers the true meaning of womanhood and her true self, allowing her to blossom among the feminine influence that surrounds her at the pink house. Lily finds acceptance among the Daughters of Mary, highlighting the larger meaning of acceptance and identity in the novel.
Heart break, joy, love, happiness, The Book The Secret Life of Bees has it all! The book is about a young girls that accidentally shot her mother. After spending nine years with her abusive, and emotionally absent father, she decides to run away. So, she breaks her beloved nanny out of prison, and Lily escapes to Tiburon South Carolina, a town she links to her mother through the writing on one of her old possessions. While in Tiburon, Lily finds the calendar sisters three very different, very helpful sisters. The family agrees to take Lilly in, despite the fact that almost every white person in town frowns upon the very idea of this white girl staying in an African American household. While staying with the sisters, August, May, and June, Lily learns lots of things, ranging from bee keeping, to why and how her mother first left her. She falls in love, explores her past, and finds it within herself to forgive her mother for leaving her, and herself, for shooting her mom. This book is rich in both emotion, and culture.
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.
The Secret Life of Bees delineates an inspirational story in which the community, friendship and faith guide the human spirit to overcome anything. The story follows Lily Owens, a 14 year old girl who desperately wants to discover the cause of her mothers death. Her father T. Ray gives her no answers, which leads their maid, Rosaleen, to act as her guardian. Together, Lily and Rosaleen run away to Tiburon, South Carolina and find a welcoming community. It is in Tiburon that Lily learns many life lessons, including many about herself. In her novel The Secret Life of Bees, Sue Monk Kidd explores a theme of spiritual growth through Lily's search for home as well as a maternal figure.
“Even in the dark I could see that it was dying, and doing it alone in the middle of all these un-concerned pines. That was the absolute way of things. Loss takes up inside of everything sooner or later and eats right through it,” (Kidd 55). This is eerie for someone who only just dodges supplementary prison time, but deciphers Lily’s logic of how life worked. A lone pine provokes speculation most did not mull over until they are older. While disaster overwhelms others, guilt consumes Lily. “I was speculating how one day, years from now, I would send the store a dollar in an envelope to cover it, spelling out how much guilt had dominated every moment of my life, when I found myself looking at a picture of the black Mary,” (Kidd 63). Lily at no instant in the novel indicates mailing the envelope or the assumed regret she would posses when she regards the Black Mary. This affair does not suggest years from now she would not send the dollar. This exposes that while she may execute seldom vile things, she would try to rectify them. Lily’s emotions also fluster after perceiving the statue of the Black Mary. “I didn’t know what to think, but what I felt was magnetic and so big it ached like the moon had entered my chest and filled it up….Standing there, I loved myself and I hated myself. That’s what the black Mary did to me, made me feel my glory and shame at the same time,” (Kidd 70-71). Lily is skeptical of how to react in the presence of the Black Mary which proves she still has yet to unravel her sincere feelings towards the Black Mary. Lily interrogates the rift between blacks and whites, this time Tiburon. “Staying in a black house with black woman….it was not something I was against….I thought they could be smart, but not as smart as me, me being white,” (Kidd 78). Lily is taken aback when August is so refine considering everything she determined about black women
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.
Lily and Rosaleen arrive on the outskirts of Tiburon, after a combination of hitchhiking and walking, hungry and tired. As Lily shopped in a convenience store for lunch, she noticed a jar of honey with the picture of the same black Mary as her mother’s picture. The store clerk points them in the right direction and they end up at the Botwright's house. As she is conversing with August Botwright, Lily notices something peculiar. As she lies on her cot she thinks to herself; “T. Ray did not think colored women were smart.
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.