Secrets In Sue Monk Kidd’s novel The Secret Life of Bees Lily Owens is seeking to find the truth behind her mother Deborah Owens’s death. Since her mother’s death Lily’s life is incomplete, she hears stories from her father (who she calls T-Ray) about her mother but does not believe them. She has been living with guilt since that one night after killing her mother. T-Ray tells Lily that her mother ran away and left her behind, Lily believes he is just saying to punish her, and does not believe what he says. She says, “What if my mother leaving wasn’t true?
One, the struggle the bees go through after their queen dies. Secondly, the teamwork showing people working together in a society. Three, the love of the bees spread towards one another just like people spreading love to their family and friends. Our lady of chains statue is symbolic on two levels. On one level it was representing Black Mary a Catholic icon for colored people.
“Honeybees depend not only on physical with the colony, but also require social companionship and support. Isolate a honey bee from her sister and she will soon die” This strongly relates to April and May. May feels the pain and suffering of everyone’s problems and carries them around on her shoulders ever since she lost her sister to a suicide death. May later on takes her own life just like her twin sister. This shows that some people depend on each other and really need one another in order to survive in an emotional.
The book that I read is called, “The Secret Life of Bees”, by Sue Monk Kidd. The main character and point of view the story is told from is 14 years old Lily Owens. She lives in Sylvan, South Carolina on her families peach farm. When Lily was very young her mother was shot and killed and now Lily taken care of by her African American nanny and housekeeper Rosaleen. Lily also lives with her father and she says in the book that it never felt right to call him dad so she just settled on T. Ray.
As Lily spends time with the Boatwright sisters, she finds out about her mother. Her mother has left her before, she just came back to get her clothes and that was when she was shot and killed. Lily was devastated of this truth. Even though she found out that her mother abandoned her, she is able to create relationships with the Boatwright sisters and Zach. She falls in love and August Boatwright and her community becomes Lily’s new family.
Travis Greenwell AP Literature Mr. Goodlett September 14, 2009 Lily Owens: girl to young woman During the time of the civil rights movement, racism was at its peak in America. However, the journey of a determined 14-year old girl named Lily Owens takes center stage in the novel The Secret Life of Bees when she escapes from her abusive father in search of what happened to her deceased mother. She ends up in the household of three African American women who teach her key principles that contribute to success in life. Throughout this novel, Lily’s determination drives her to discover the truth about her mother while maturing in the Boatwright household. In this story, the main focus is on Lily’s journey to find everything she can about her mother and her longing for motherly love.
In the novel Secret Life Of bees by Sue Monk Kidd. Lily narrates the novel in the first-person, unfolding the events she experiences from her point of view and also retelling the stories of others. In chapter 2 Lily decides to head to Tiburon after helping Rosaleen escape the hospital and possible death. Lily finds this town written on her mother’s black Mary picture, so decides this is where she wants to go. After Rosaleen pours her snuff juice on three white men, she and Lily are sent to jail.
The devastating loss of a mother at a young age can drastically affect a girl’s life; it can impact the way she interacts with others, the way she thinks, and how she handles herself emotionally. In The Secret Life of Bees, written by Sue Monk Kidd, the main character, Lily Owens, loses her mother at the age of four. She copes with the after effect: trying to grow up on her own, with little to no parental influence. During her journey to Tiburon, South Carolina, with her caregiver, Rosaleen, she finds comfort and support in the family of women she meets. Throughout the novel, Lily matures and adapts to her new life evidenced by the inspiration she receives from the Black Mary and Calendar Sisters.
Susie spends the rest of the story trying to send messages to her family about her murderer, and help them find her murderer to ease both her, her parents and her friends. Alice Sebold has a lot of strengths in her writing. The Lovely Bones captures audiences with its grisly beginning, and the reader experiences the different emotions caused by the tragedy and sees how it affects the lives of those close to her. She makes it that her work of fiction provides shocking insight into the reality of a murdered sister, daughter, friend, or acquaintance, and shows how a single terrible event and how it can shape their entire lives. It moves forward and backward in time to allow the reader to get to know each character, their hopes, doubts, fears, and true self- in depth.
Symbolism Novelist Sue Monk Kidd, in her novel, The Secret Life of Bees, tells the story of fourteen-year-old Lily, who runs away with her black housekeeper in 1964 in South Carolina, and of a sanctuary they find in the home of three beekeeping sisters. Kidd’s purpose was to create a clear image of what happens in the text. Sue Monk Kidd creates imagery through the use of figurative language. Symbols are used throughout the novel to create imagery starting with the bees. The bees are a symbol that proves that imagery was shown in the novel.