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 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.
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.
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.
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.
Secret Life of Bees Essay “The Secret Life of Bees” by Sue Monk Kidd explores the way of life through the metaphor of a bee’s. Bees represent people and their lives within a home that no one may notice. A range of characters are developed throughout the story from a young girl who escapes a troubled home to a black woman who leads a honey company during the Civil Rights Movement. However, the character I particularly admire is May, a black woman who cares for all creatures while dealing with severe depression.
The Secret Life of Bees is a novel written by Sue Monk Kidd and it is about a girl named Lily who runs away from home with her maid Rosaleen to a honey house to get away from danger and racism. In the house Lily finds out secrets about her dead mother. When cruelty is represented in the story it can be helpful in contributing to the overall theme or message. Racism occurs throughout the story and it helps develop the theme of anyone can over look stereotypes.
As orated in the quotation above, by August to Lily the Mary of Chains serves as a great object of growth for Lily to find her own inner strength and to be her own mother. In The Secret Life of Bees Lily struggles to find and connect with her mother throughout the novel. Lily continues to look at her past and dwell upon the fact that she doesn’t have a mother, and because of that Lily goes to great lengths to find out whatever she can about her mother.
Sue Monk Kidd’s novel, The Secret Life of Bees, Kidd indirectly characterizes, Lily as a follower, because she longing desire to fit in with the other girls at her school. Lily, the protagonist of the story, does not fit in with her classmates at Sylvan Junior High. Lily went to charm school at the Women’s Club to try and learn how to be a girl. One of the other ways Lily tried to fit in was when she asked her father, T. Ray, for a silver charm bracelet, just like the ones every girl at school had. “I wanted to tell T. Ray that any girl would love a silver charm bracelet, that in fact last year I’d been the only girl at Sylvan Junior High without one, that whe whole point of lunchtime was to stand in the cafeteria line jangling your
In Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees, the excerpt supports the theme of the novel by explaining that love is worth all. In the statement, Lily watches her father leave her behind at August’s house,because he knows that he can not love Lily the way that all of the women can love her. After T.Ray leaves, Lily looks at the women and realizes that the hole she has felt all of her life, from not having her mother, is now filled with love. Now she does have a mother; now she has many mothers.