“A sense of inadequacy often informs the question around ‘Who am I?’”. An article written by Mel Schwartz for Psychology Today explores the idea of identity and what it means to an individual. The information presented in this article can be connected to characters in the novels The Book Thief by Markus Zusak and The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. In each of these stories, characters are faced with a lack of sense of self, not knowing who they are because they think that they mean nothing to the world and are even worthless at times. This lack of identity due to the feeling of inadequacy affects Max in The Book Thief relationally and Lily in The Secret Life of Bees emotionally, while also creating better character development. In …show more content…
After Lily runs away from home on a mission to find out the truth about her mother, she faces emotions and feelings that she never knew before. After learning that her mother left her when she was a baby, Lily storms the “honey house” where she is staying and destroys everything in sight. Looking around at the wreckage, Lily notices as “a trickle of bright red blood wound down my left arm…My heart beat wildly. I felt like I’d unzipped my skin and momentarily stepped out of it, leaving a crazy person in charge” (Kidd 259). Her frustration and anger lead her to be a person she didn’t know and was ashamed of. But, as she learns more about her mother and her past, she eventually realizes that “in a weird way I must have loved my little collection of hurts and wounds. They provide me some real nice sympathy, with a feeling I was exceptional…What a special case I was” (Kidd 278). Her emotions had gotten the better of her in the past, but now she learns that they are a part of her and they are something to embrace and find comfort in. They make her unique. The emotional roller coaster Lily is on makes readers focus more and more on how Lily’s emotions affect the story, how her actions allow her to find herself in a world of hate and untold
On the first page of the novel, “The Secret Life of Bees” the Heroine of the book, Lily Owens, declared that, “my life went spinning off into a whole new orbit,” (page 1) we as readers have no clue whatsoever what she is talking about. Lily seems like a child with a normal life but that can easily be proven wrong; at the age of four she happen to kill her mother without knowing it and has a father in which can be a bit brutal at times. Despite everything, Lily is a lady who loved to learn things about her mother every chance she got, it was clear she had love for Deborah, no doubt, even if she didn’t have any memories of her. An example that perfectly demonstrates this is the argument Lily and T. Ray had: Lily declared that Deborah wouldn’t
This is the forbidden moment that connected Lily with the mother she had always had, but never noticed. “ I reached out and traced black Mary’s heart with my finger. I stood with the petals on my toes, and pressed my palm flat and hard against her heart. I live in a hive of darkness, and you are my mother, I told her. You are the mother of thousands,”(184).
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.
The novel The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd follows Lily, a white girl, after running away with Rosaleen, a black woman, to the Boatwright house. During the story, the insight that we should find love becomes increasingly obvious. To begin, we should find love because it builds resilience. Having the love of others helps in staying resolute during hardships. Toward the beginning of the book, Rosaleen tries to register to vote and ends up going to jail.
The Secret Life of Bees was written by Sue Monk Kidd. It's an emotional story about a little girl in search of her mothers past, but along the way she discovers herself and who she really is. It's based in 1964 in South Carolina. A little girl named Lilly runs away from her abusive father to follow her mothers footsteps in order to discover her past. After escaping from her father, Lilly and Rosaleen(Lilly's nanny) came across a general store.
Lily has a coming of age moment when she realizes she is loved. “You are unlovable, Lily Owens. Unlovable. Who could love you? Who in this world could ever love you?”(Kidd 242).
The four texts I have chosen are Crips and Bloods: Made in America directed by Stacy Peralta, The Secret Life of Bees written by Sue Monk Kidd, The Help directed by Tate Taylor and Selma directed by Ava DuVernay. These texts all have the theme of segregation of black and white people in America. Segregation in America in the 1960s was a very large issue at this time, yet is still a part of our society today. A significant connection that unites the two texts Crips and Bloods and The Secret Life of Bees is the theme of segregation of black and white people.
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
Instead of loathing T.Ray, she begins to search for a love that she feels he should and can feel for her. Throughout the novel Lily craves love, love she never felt from her parents. She has finally found the love she sought in Tiburon. After discovering what happened with her parents Lily learned not to judge as much. Lily overall has grown into a more fully engaged
“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.
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.
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