ipl-logo

The Secret Life Of Bees Chapter Summary

593 Words3 Pages

The novel The Secret Life of Bees, written by Sue Monk Kidd, is a story of a 14-year-old girl named Lily who loses her mother and goes on an extraordinary adventure in order to learn more about who her mother was. In the concluding chapter of the book, chapter 14, an epigraph is included that states: “A queenless colony is a pitiful and melancholy community; there may be a mournful wail or lament from within… Without intervention, the colony will die. But introduce a new queen and the most extravagant change takes place” (Kidd 277). The epigraph provides an insight as to what the deeper meaning of the chapter is. Lily, when she is young, loses her queen which is her mother and is devastated by it. However, when Lily meets August Boatwright, …show more content…

Ray, her father, shows up to August’s house to bring Lily home at the end of the book. All hope seems lost for her, and she believes that her new life is over and must return to her old life of sadness. August, however, talks T. Ray into leaving Lily with her and her sisters. Lily realizes that she truly is loved, and sees that she now has a new queen, and at the same time a new mother. Her life has become something beautiful. She still holds some feelings of sadness for losing her real mother, but is grateful to have a new queen in her life. The theme of The Secret Life of Bees is that everyone needs a queen that will love and protect them. This “queen” can be anything from a biological mother to a caregiver that loves deeply. If a human is missing a queen, their life will become exactly like the bees’ lives do when they lose their queen. Life falls apart with the deprivation of a queen. However, life will bloom and flourish quickly with the introduction of a new queen, whoever that might be. This is shown throughout the novel, and especially in chapter 14 when Lily begins to forgive her old queen and love her new queen

Show More
Related

  • The Secret Life Of Bees Rhetorical Analysis

    1302 Words  | 6 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • What Role Does Lily Play In The Secret Life Of Bees

    1146 Words  | 5 Pages

    Her father, whom she loves, never shows any affection for her, and she has reason to believe that her mother, whom she so desperately wants to have loved her, abandoned her before Lily accidentally killed her. This complicated relationship to love leaves her without a clear idea of whether love can be a positive force in life at all, and she reaches the extreme, negatively charged opinion that the fiery passion of love destroys the world. Later in the novel, when Lily learns that love is not only about rejection and longing, her opinion of love softens a great deal, although she never recants on these poignant, passionate

    Read More

  • Symbolism In The Secret Life Of Bees

    592 Words  | 3 Pages

    Lily is the main character, and narrator of her story, through her interactions she gains an understanding

    Read More

  • Bees In Honey Drown Characters

    732 Words  | 3 Pages

    “What I didn’t bank on was—the world he would show me. A way of life. A way of possibilities,” Says Alexa Vere de Vere as she embraces the stage spaced around her. Although she is sitting, she brings life to the words as if she was running around the stage. As Bees in Honey Drown is a play by Douglas Carter Beane, first preformed in 1997.

    Read More

  • Symbols In The Secret Life Of Bees

    891 Words  | 4 Pages

    A touching story of a young teenage girl’s way to healing and of finding. Not only wholeness, but the sacredness of living in this crazy world. It shows the simple feelings and the overcoming within struggles in the flow of time. The Secret Life of Bees is a book about love, pain, courage, and being strong; it’s an outstanding, hard, and crazy adventure of one young teenage girl looking for her mother. Confirming that a family can be found where it’s least expected.

    Read More

  • Character Analysis Of Lily In The Secret Life Of Bees

    596 Words  | 3 Pages

    August goes on to tell her that she has no idea what she’s talking about. She gives all the reasons why she is lying to herself. After all this, Lily ends up realizing she is loved and is thankful for August.

    Read More

  • Symbolism In The Secret Life Of Bees

    1493 Words  | 6 Pages

    No matter where she is, or what happens in the future, she is able to adopt the idea that Mary is always with her, she does not have to “put [her] hand on Mary’s heart to find strength and consolation and rescue… “[she] can place it right here on [her] own heart” (Kidd 288). The repetition of “her heart” and “Mary’s heart” throughout the passage allows the two to become interchangeable. The connection of the symbol of the red heart painted over the statue of Mary to Lily’s own beating heart enforces the idea of Mary being a perpetual part of Lily’s daily life. Additionally, August says to Lily, “This Mary I’m talking about sits in your heart all day long, saying, ‘Lily, you are my everlasting home.”, and follows with Lily saying “I closed my eyes, and in the coolness of the morning, there among the bees, I felt for one clear instant what she was talking about” (Kidd 289). Lily’s sense of home has been unstable throughout her life, so August uses the metaphor of Lily being Mary’s “home” to make her feel stable and grounded, which is justified when Lily says she is able to close her eyes and

    Read More

  • The Secret Life Of Bees Analysis

    2453 Words  | 10 Pages

    Lily seems to have a happy ending. The story ends “happily ever after”, the problem is solved right away. Lily’s life became bliss once she lets everything go. Lily was able to forgive herself and both of her parents. and as a result was blessed with a beautiful life filled with the love that she so needed and deserved.

    Read More

  • Interracial Relationships In The Secret Life Of Bees

    1919 Words  | 8 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Dyslexia Monologue

    1585 Words  | 7 Pages

    She was the queen bee who flew around the school, and controlled all the bees in her hive. All the bees followed her orders, did everything that she said, even if they didn’t want to. They were all under her influence. But me? I was the outsider bee.

    Read More

  • The Secret Life Of Bees Reflection Essay

    983 Words  | 4 Pages

    “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.

    Read More

  • Secret Life Of Bees Boundaries

    481 Words  | 2 Pages

    The article relates to, “The Secret Life of Bees” because on the journey they are constantly doing anything and everything to end the laws by pushing boundaries. In the book, “The Secret Life of Bees” Rosaleen as constantly pushing boundaries. For example it says, “For a second they stared down at the juice, dribbled like car oil across their shoe. They blinked, trying to make it register.

    Read More

  • Lily Daw And The Three Ladies Essay

    878 Words  | 4 Pages

    The ladies sharply change their minds about Lily going to Ellisville they want her to marry after all. This reason is because they no longer will have to pay for her way to Ellisville. They quickly take her off the train, in all of the commotion they forget the only thing Lily loves her hope chest. They reversed their decision and now are pressuring Lily to marry, while Lily pleads, “But I don’t want to get married . . . I’m going to Ellisville” (11).

    Read More

  • Mental Illness In The Secret Life Of Bees

    705 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Lily Racism Quotes

    676 Words  | 3 Pages

    Lily was raised being unknowingly racist while being abused by her father, T. Ray. Readers can conclude that Lily’s father has cruel ways to punish Lily, an example is, “I’d been kneeling on grits since I was six, but I still never got used to that powdered glass feeling beneath my skin” (24). Being raised in one of the most racist towns in South Carolina, Sylvan, Lily, like every other child living in South Carolina, was born into racism. Lily has never had a problem with black people, but feels like she sticks out while she was at the Boatwright sister’s house, “Staying in a colored house with colored women, eating off their dishes, lying on their sheets-it was not something I was against, but I was brand new to it, and my skin never felt

    Read More

More about The Secret Life Of Bees Chapter Summary

Open Document