Essay On Rosaleen In Sue Monk Kidd's Characters

Rosaleen and Lily journey to the Boatwright sisters pink house where the sisters welcome them in to stay. At first, Lily lies to the sisters about her early life because she wanted to find out if her mother had stayed there. Rosaleen and Lily learn a lot of things about the sisters when they get there. Once they are there for awhile, Lily begins helping August with the beekeeping and Rosaleen stays in the house to watch over May. They soon learn, that the sisters and the Daughters of Mary have made up their own religion, where they praise the Black Madonna, and have their own worship services at the sister’s house.

Lily’s idolization of her mother is shown in how she describes Deborah’s belongings. A photo, which she see’s her mother's beautiful, gloves that Lily holds as if it were actually hers, and a photo of the black Mary which she keeps close. Right before Lily finds out T. Ray was right in saying Deborah left them Lily says she never believed him and she wants to prove him wrong. Characters with flaws are a lot more sympathetic and likeable to the reader instead of the perfect flawless unrealistic ones. Kidd got the reader to understand these flaws with how August tried to explain the situation to Lily, “All she did was cry for a week.

When Lily lost her mother and has T. Ray taking care of her, she starts questioning her mother of why she left them. “Your sorry mother ran off and left you. The day she died, she’d come back to get her things, that’s all,” (Kidd, 40). When Lily heard T. Ray say this to her, she was shocked with depression and thinking that T. Ray might of lied to her about what he said about her mother. The lesson is that Lily is depressed and questioning herself on why her mother decided to leave her.

Lily’s mother was stripped of her limits by Lily’s father and her sense of independence was gone. As Lily’s mother said, the more she accepted her husband's apologies, the more her tolerance for the abuse went up, which ultimately resulted in Lily’s mother being somewhat of a villain while her father was alive. Lastly, Lily’s dad plays the role of an antagonist perfectly as he shows the reader what a negative force looks like. Lily continuously shows the reader of the book the violent temper and the mental and physical abuse that they had to encounter with Lily's father.

How “The Secret Life of Bees” and Real Life Lily in “The Secret Life of Bees” by Sue Monk Kidd is a big social change in the society of their time, she did not find black people as being less of a human being. “Then he saw Rosaleen and started to rub the bald space on his head with such agitation I thought he might rub down to the bone”(Sue Monk Kidd page 30). 1964 in the United States, racism toward the black community was still very present, especially in the South, which is where Lily and her African American friend Rosaleen lived. For something as simple as walking into a prominently white church blacks were looked down upon and sometimes forced out, but Lily brought Rosaleen in like she was no different than herself. “So you’ve been here the whole time, staying with colored women”(Sue

Individuality means the quality or character of a particular person or thing that distinguishes them from others of the same kind. Independence means freedom from control, influence, support, aid, or the like, of others ("The Definition Of Independence"). Within the three texts that I chose for my project, a person can see many examples of individuality; including Scout from To Kill A Mockingbird, Lily Owens from The Secret Life of Bees, and from the character A in Every Day. All of these characters show that fear can only limit your potential if you allow it to. They also show that to become an individual one must develop independence, and not follow the influence of others.

Lily barely knew her own mother, and T. Ray, her father, abuses her and could care less. Lily gets to experience the parent-child love from Rosaleen. Kidd asserts that the interaction between different races can lead to loving

And I took her away. ”(Kidd 8) Lily has had a rough start to her life with her father being abusive and neglecting to her and not to mention her shooting and killing her mom on accident. Lily had lost so much, but gained a great deal of parental figures when she and Rosaleen escape off to Tiburon. There they find August Boatwright and Lily’s life changes.

She finds herself in a small town called Tiburon in South Carolina, living with August Boatwright who was once her mother’s maid. After staying in Tiburon for a while, Lily calls her father, curious if he knows what her favourite colour is. They only spoke for a short period of

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).

The conflict between Lily and the ladies started right off at the beginning of the story when they discuss the letter that Mrs. Carson received from the feeble-mined institution in Ellisville, where they want to send Lily.

Unlike the three ladies we must think about the consequences of our actions, especially when we are making decisions for others. Lily no matter if she had a disability was still human and deserved to be happy and not sent off to a place where she would be lonely and possibly sad. Ellisville could have been a special institute to help these “feeble-minded” people but as it was mentioned in the story it had over crowding and it just seemed like it wouldn’t be the best place for young Lily to be at. The biggest significance of the story was that the ladies finally in the end realize the mistake they are making by sending Lily to Ellisville and that Lily received that happiness and got the chance to what she wanted to do with her life, which was getting

As the parent with the most direct involvement with her two children, Daisy does hold some responsibility for her son’s disappearance. When the principal at Donny’s high school calls her and requests a meeting, Daisy feels as though she is the one being reprimanded rather than her teenage son. Defensively, she tells the principal Mr. Lanham, “It isn’t that we’re not concerned… we’ve done what we could, whatever we could think of… How are we to know what to believe?” In these lines, Daisy begins to show just how suggestible she is. Like many parents when their children begin to misbehave, Daisy does not know where to begin, but she is completely willing to throw money at the problem in the hopes it will help.

Eventually, Lily grows to stands up to T.Ray. Throughout the novel she has a sarcastic response to everything. However, towards the end of the novel she begins to have an actual voice. She even learns about prejudices. Since is she not prejudice towards blacks, Lily thinks others aren’t either.

Her father left her constantly at young ages. He left his family completely till she was an adult when Rosa turned five. Rosa later moved to Abbeville to live with her father’s family when she was one year old. Her mother hated living there with his family. Later when