Character Analysis: Secret Life Of Bees

Life is filled with challenges and conflict. However only a few can overcome and escape the confinements of their problems, others remain left behind to struggle. Sue Monk Kidd displays this with the imprisonment that Lily deals with throughout the book. While Lily does finds liberation at the end, she first had to break free from the imprisonments of her secrets, T-Ray, and the torment from killing her mother.

The author of the Secret Life of Bees chose to use Lily, the young white female protagonist on the precipice of adulthood, in order to better tell this story. Lily serves the role as narrator, and we see the story through her eyes – providing a unique insight that no other character in the story would give, being an outsider in Tiburon, as well as her journey of self-discovery that is at the core of this book.

Lily has many stops on this journey and it does not all occur at once. An initial point of maturing is when Lily finally musters up enough strength to leave T. Ray. This was a prominent point of maturity for Lily because previously, she was terrified of T. Ray and allowed him to treat her unfairly. For example, when T. Ray punishes Lily for being outside at night, she states, “My knees

Two of her sisters have this problem and it has genuinely affected August for better or worse. Lily’s father, T-Ray, deals with his mental illness by using violence and taking his anger out on Lily because of what happened with his wife Deborah. This causes Lily to feel unloved by her father. In the beginning of the story, Lily runs away from home to escape her tragic life with T. Ray.

Lily suffers from living with an abusive father. She also deals with the guilt of accidentally killing her mother, feeling unwanted, and not knowing the true reason her mother left. For example, “The gun shining like a toy in her hand, how he snatched it away and waved it around. The gun on the floor. Bending to pick it up.

In the story, Kidd’s use of characterization successfully reveals the theme that people's lives are more complex than they appear. Kidd demonstrates this theme using the characterization of Lily, T. Ray, May, and Deborah. One character that Sue Monk Kidd uses to portray the theme, is the main character Lily. In the beginning of the story, the author shows that Lily can be both mature and immature at times. An example of her maturity in the text is when she says, “People who think dying is the worst thing don’t know a thing about life” (Kidd 2).

She started to become more Chaya than Hannah. She forgot the feeling of love, the taste of food, the comfort of having a bed, it all went away. However, she had her friends, and part of her family who helped each other go through those tough times of being

At the end the confusion she had with the marigolds is gone and she realizes why they are

During the middle of the story she began to have a change of heart. She started to hang out with her aunt more and realized it takes a lot of effort. During this time of self discovery she noticed small details about her friends and family. But by the end of the book she starts to see things from others views to give her insight to how others might see things.

Through indirect characterization, Sue Monk Kidd, author of The Secret Life of Bees, displays Rosaleen as an obstinate character in order to exhibit the southern racism at hand. For example, Rosaleen is indirectly characterized when she comes into contact with the town’s most notorious racist, Franklin Posey, and will not apologize for standing up for her beliefs. Recalling the event, she exclaims, “‘he hit me till the policeman said that was enough. They didn’t get no apology, though’” (46). Above all, Rosaleen is stuck living in the south during the 1960s; a time period full of extreme racial tension. She is facing ridicule and name-calling simply because of her skin color, but nonetheless stands up and fights back against this injustice.

“A wonderful novel about mothers and daughters and the transcendent power of love” (Connie May Fowler). This quote reflects the novel, The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd because the protagonist in the story, Lily Owens, her mother have died when she was four years old and she didn’t feel loved by her abusive father, T. Ray Owens, until she met the Boatwrights family with the housekeeper, Rosaleen, and stayed with them. The Boatwrights family are the three black sisters who are August, May, and June. This novel took place in Sylvan and Tiburon, South Carolina, where Lily grew up and where she found the answer to her questions.

Not only had her friends changed her life, but she had changed theirs. I would recommend this outstanding book to anyone looking for a good

She realizes that by marrying Edgar she has alienated herself and concealed her own nature in order to become his

Throughout the duration of Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret LIfe of Bees, the characters of her novel undergo various difficulties. The novel revolves around Lily as she learns about her past and tries to discover more about her long-dead mother. Additionally, the novel features extensive character interaction as Lily and her companion Rosaleen take residence at a farm in Tiburon, South Carolina, and meet three sisters: May, June, and August. In order to give the reader insights to the personalities of these characters, Kidd incorporates the literary devices of indirect characterization, symbolism, and allusion, in her novel.

DETAILED SYNOPSIS: Lily Carson is beautiful, shockingly so. With hair brighter than sunshine and softer than silk, eyes a disturbingly clear yet sedating sea green, legs that just won 't quit with a body to match, and a mind deeper and more expansive than most everyone she encounters, the potential for her to seize the world by it 's short-hairs is obvious to all. There 's only one problem... Lily Carson LOATHES her appearance above all else. The only moments in her life when she doesn 't see her pulchritude as a curse are when she 's using those physical gifts to bring "true justice" to rapists and pedophiles who fall through the judicial cracks.