The Secret Life Of Bees Rhetorical Analysis

Lily Melissa Owens, also known as Lily is the protagonist in the book The Secret Life of Bees. She lives in 1964 which is in also know and is turning 14. I feel sympathy for her because she has lost her mother when she was about 4 years old and her father, isn’t a nice person. He is mean and sets harsh rules for her and always tells her that her mother died because of her. On the other hand, Rosaleen, a black woman who worked at the peach farm which Lily’s father owned is like Lily’s mother.

In Sue Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees, Kidd has the allusion Jane Eyre as a comparison for Lily and her journey throughout the book. The Secret Life of Bees has the allusion of Jane Eyre, with the comparison of Jane to Lily. “‘It’s about [Jane Eyre] a girl whose mother died when she was little,’ she said. Then she looked at me in a way that made my stomach tip over, the same way it’s tipped over when she’d told me about Beatrix” (131). In Jane Eyre, Jane is brought up in an abusive home, after which she is sent away to an abusive boarding school.

The Secret Lives of People The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd, is an interesting story that connects human lives to bees. The story takes place in 1964 during the Civil Rights Movement and fourteen year-old Lily Owens leaves her abusive father and her home in Sylvan, South Carolina to go to Tiburon with hopes to find information on her mother. Throughout the story, Lily struggles with many internal conflicts and also meets several mother figures along the way. 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.

In the novel Secret Life of Bees there are many characters with interesting backgrounds and unique characteristics. They each serve a purpose in the book to support the main character, push the character in a certain direction, and send a message to the readers.The character in the novel of Secret Life of Bees that Kidd makes me particularly admire is August Boatwright. August breaks the stereotype of black women in the South during this period. She lives in her own home with her two sisters and runs a successful business. Although she was once a housekeeper for Lily's mother, August also graduated from college and became a high school teacher.

I think that this quality is crucial to progress in both physical and spiritual life. I learned that perseverance was the key to success through my study of The Secret Life of Bees, Maus, and La Linea. While studying the second book of the year, The Secret Life of Bees, I saw various illustrations of perseverance. This is the story of a young girl pursuing truth about her mother's death and along the way encountering some of the most influential people in her young life. Perseverance was a driving factor

The Secret Life of Bees The novel The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd, demonstrates racism with stereotypes and on how a fourteen-year-old girl named Lilly Owens struggles with her own racism. She assumes that like Rosaleen, all African Americans are uneducated housekeepers. But when Rosaleen and Lilly run away from T. Ray’s house in search for information about Lilly’s mother. They encounter a black, women named August Boatwright and her two sisters June and May Boatwright. August surprises Lilly that a black person can be creative, sensitive, and smart.

After her sister Zahra was accused of stealing money from the family she worked for, Shyima was sent in her place.During her time in slavery, Shyima was mistreated. When she was moved to the U.S. on August 3, 2000, she was treated worse because she was the only worker they’d brought with them. Shyima was constantly both verbally and physically abused. “The Mom was a master at making many of the people around her feel like dirt”(72). She would yell derogatory words, like “You’re nothing, nobody”(73), and that she was a “stupid girl”(26).

In the unique short story “Initiation”, I learned about the mythical Heather Birds. In the story these birds represent a symbol of freedom for a girl named Millicent. Millicent is young girl attempting to join a sorority. In order to be accepted into the sorority she must first complete serval tasks. These tasks included cleaning a member of the sorority’s room and even asking random strangers to answer survey questions.

“It had been months since I laid eyes on Mom, and when she looked up, I was overcome with panic that she'd see me and call out my name, and that someone on the way to the part would spot us together and Mom would introduce herself and my secret would be out” (The Glass Castle 3). Even though she feels shame because of her parents, she also feels guilty because how ashamed she is of her parents. She felt guilt for hiding her parents from the people in her life, and she felt like she was living a lie. Also, she feels guilty because her parents are homeless and living on

And yet, each would wither in my arms the very night of their birth. I have spoke nothin', but my heart has clamored intimations. And now, this year, my Ruth, my only—,” So Mrs. Putnam understands grief but the people around her started saying things like since god wont bless goody Putnam with a good amount of children she is going to hell. This is completely wrong in today’s world but back in those times it was reason to them. That time it was a regular thing.