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Character Analysis Of Lily Owens In The Secret Life Of Bees

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Imagine living back in the olden days. Times where blacks and whites couldn’t use the same bathroom, sink, or even stairs. This would be a horrible thing to have to go through. Going through this without a mom would be even worse. This to some extent is the story of Lily Owens. Lily Owens is a fourteen year old girl who accidentally killed her mom at the age of three. Before her mom died, she left Lily and her father, T. Ray. Lily grows up, runs away, and soon finds out that it is true her mom left her and doesn’t want to forgive her. In Sue Monk Kidd’s novel, The Secret Life of Bees, Lily has a coming of age moment when she learns how to cope with forgiving her mom. She learns how to forgive her mom by going through things such as: feeling as if her mother never wanted her, taking her anger out on things to help with the situation, and realizing her mom made a mistake. …show more content…

August says, “All I know, Lily, is she was depressed, kind of falling apart. The day she left home nothing unusual happened. She just woke up and decided she couldn’t be there anymore...Up until she got here, I thought she’d be bringing you with her.” (Kidd 251) August tells Lily this, explaining to her what was going through Deborah’s head the day she left Lily. Lily takes what all August is saying the wrong way and thinks her mom didn’t want her. “It was easy for her to leave me, because she never wanted me in the first place.” (Kidd 252) “She left me. It was just like he said it was. She left me.” (Kidd 262) When Lily figures out that it is true her mom left her, she immediately thinks of the worst. These two quotes are just some things she said to some people. She thinks that since her mom didn’t take her with her, that means she didn’t want her. She told people over and over again the same things, but everyone knew that wasn’t

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