...Fighting for Their Rights Throughout The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, characters are constantly standing up for what they believe in. Rosaleen stands up for her civil rights, Lily stands up for freedom from her dad, the Boatwrights and the Daughters of Mary stood up for the equality of women and African Americans. When Rosaleen heard of the signing of the civil rights act, she immediately went to register to vote, and when Lily was acting like she was stupid, she stood up for herself. When Lily’s dad was abusing her and not allowing her to do with her life what she wanted, Lily ran away from home in an attempt to find her own way through life. As African American women, society put the Boatwrights at a lower level than men and white people, and so they create their own organization in which they are special. Throughout the novel, Rosaleen Daise, Lily Owens, and the Boatwrights all stand up for what they believe in, signifying that people can only get past the expectations of society by fighting for what they think is right. In standing up for her beliefs of civil equality, Rosaleen moves past the set place that society has placed her in. Upon the signing of the Civil rights act, Rosaleen spends hours practicing her signature so that she will be able to register to vote without being rejected. When Rosaleen was on her way to vote and she was questioned by racist white men, she retaliated by pouring her snuff juice on their feet. After the white men beat her and...
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...Secret Life of Bees Symbolism In theory, a bee's wings are too small for it’s body. The bee should not be able to fly at all, let alone do all the work that it does. Some people have obstacles in their lives that should prevent them from “flying” but many find a way to carry on. Lily Owens, the main character in Sue Monk Kidd’s novel, The Secret Life of Bees, was raised by her physically and emotionally abusive father. She has never had a mother figure in her life because of her mother’s death 11 years earlier. Lily finds a wooden picture of the Black Mary in her mother’s possessions and sets out to search for her mother’s past and find a family. The Black Mary leads Lily to the Boatwright sisters, three black woman who run a honey making business. There Lily finds a family she never expected and strength she never knew she had. The Black Mary is a prominent symbol in the Secret Life of Bees because it represents faith and hope to many characters, it overcomes racial...
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...August lives in Tiburon, South Carolina, where she makes a living beekeeping and selling honey-based products. She is originally from Richmond, Virginia, where worked as a housekeeper for Lily's mother, Deborah. She got her degree from a teacher's college and taught history for six years up north before moving down to Tiburon to start her beekeeping/honey business. August Boatwright is a strong, charismatic, and enormously wise woman. August raises bees and runs her own business selling honey and beeswax products, and she also acts as a surrogate mother to Lily Owens for much of the novel. Unbeknownst to Lily, August worked as a maid for Deborah Fontanel Owens years before, and considers it her duty to take care of Lily when she...
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...Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees revolves around fourteen-year-old Lily Owens, a determinedly stubborn, friendless, motherless girl living in South Carolina during the 1960’s. From the first chapter of the book, Lily’s character is significantly shaped by her mother’s absence, which is accounted to an accident occurring when Lily was only three, perhaps even at the fault of the young girl herself. In addition to affecting her personality, this traumatic experience drives her to seek maternal care and belonging as she runs away to Tiburon, South Carolina and the plot unfolds. Independence and determination make up large portions of Lily’s character. Growing up with only her emotionally detached and almost cruel father, whom she refers to as “T. Ray” in place of daddy, she was never allowed to take part in social endeavors and even resorted to sewing her own clothes and using...
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...Martinez Ms. Harris Per.4 3/9/16 The Secret Life of Bees Thematic Analysis Essay The classic novel ” Secret Life of Bees “, by Sue Monk Kidd does not have only one theme. This novel is set in 1964, which takes place right after the Civil Rights Acts. This means that the book comes across difficulties with it’s characters including racism throughout the story line. The main protagonist, Lily Owens who is age bound of turning 14, experiences challenges during her childhood that change the way she copes up with her emotions as she grows up turning into a woman. Lily also had problems facing the truth about who she is and what happened to her mother. First, In the novel the author Sue Monk Kidd, presents a strong message about...
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...Before checking this book out from the library I had no idea what it was about, after reading the short summary on the back of the book and finding out a film was also created to mimic this story I was immediately intrigued . The story was narrated through the main character Lily, a young teenage girl who wanted nothing more than to seek out information regarding her diseased mother whom she has restricted memories and who desperately desires to know what love and true happiness consists of. Lily narrates the novel in the first-person, describing the events she experiences from her unique perspective and retelling the stories others tell her in the same manner. Lily narrates the story and presents an attitude that maybe considered that similar to the tone a child when sharing personal information that have written in a diary, except with less self-loathing and more passionate feelings. Lily’s father who shows evidence of not only being a bigot but who is uncompassionate and callous which makes it more than difficult for her to grow up as normal girl, as he treats his own daughter as an inconvenience. Growing up Lily was limited to the girly activities she was permitted to do I assume she may have a tad of an immature superego due to this, according to I reference this as I believe her moral development is inadequate. However, she is still in her adolescent stages and has plenty of more life ahead of her to enhance to her current development. This story takes place in nineteen...
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...thing, don’t know a thing about life” Lily, p2. The novel is an excellent written drama. It explores race, love and the idea of family and home in troubled times. The author of the book, Sue Monk Kidd, is a well-known writer who has written other known books such as “The Mermaid Chair”(2005) and “A Mother-Daughter Story”(2010). She has been on the New York Times bestselling list twice, which one of them were with this very novel. The secret life of bees was published in 2002 by Penguin Books New York. The story takes place in South Carolina in the 1960’s, which we can say is a time were racism was on it’s worst. Time and place has a lot to do with the story, and we get to look into a time were being black wasn’t easy. The main character of the book is fourteen years old Lily. She is a brave and smart girl, whose only wish for a birthday present is to know a little about her mother. Her fear of living a life without being loved is getting her to write poems, which she’s good at. All-tough Lily doesn’t have a mother she has a father, T. Ray. She calls him that because she doesn’t think of him as a father. He is abusive and angry and doesn’t seem to have any heart inside him. He finds ways of torturing her, not only physically but also mentally. Rosaleen, their housekeeper and Lily’s nanny, is a black woman who has taken care of Lily since she arrived, not long after the death of Lily’s mother. Rosaleen is a caring and smart...
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...decides to run away with her African American housekeeper, Rosaleen. She goes to Tiburon knowing she would be safer. However, Lily didn't know she would run into the Boatwright sisters and realize that they were all the family she could’ve ask for and that she had mothers all around her that loved her and cherished her. The book was a huge hit! It was quickly rated 4 out of 5 stars and sold 8 million copies worldwide. It became a genuine classic and was eventually created into a movie in 2008. It spent more than 2½ years on the New York Times bestseller list and it has been translated into 36 different languages. The Secret Life of Bees was named the Book Sense Paperback Book of the Year in 2004, longlisted for the 2002 Orange Prize...
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...discrimination of both their gender and the color of their skin define them as individuals. During the duration of this book, I tracked the three Boatwright sisters and their important roles in each other's life. Each character had such a different, nonetheless important personage. They worked together in unison, combining their weaknesses and strengths, leaning on each other for moral support as they had done their whole lives. June Boatwright's greatest weakness was her inability to feel. Due to her past, it is clear to everyone that it's extremely hard for her to allow people to come close to her heart, due to it being broken in the past. When it comes to the second sister, May, it can't get anymore opposite. May felt too much. May felt the world's pain. She was severely depressed and fragile. August Boatwright, the third and last sister, did not show any weaknesses that I as a reader am aware of. August was crucial to the stabilization of the sisters as characters as well as the sisters as a whole group because of her compassion, independence and leadership. As Lily Owens, a fourteen year old girl whose late mother was once very close with August comes into their lives they each benefit her in different ways. Lily becomes closest with August, and is let in on why May acts the way she does. Why she is fragile and broken. ¨¨May had a twin.¨ August said. ¨Our sister April. The two of them were like one soul sharing two bodies. I never saw anything like it. The first day we were here...
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...motifs, foreshadowing, and themes. The one device that stands out the most is her use of symbolism. Symbolism is defined “as a literary element that uses symbols to signify ideas or qualities by giving them symbolic meanings that are different from their literal sense” (Literary Devices 1). In The Secret Life of Bees, symbolism is shown by Black Mary, the Wailing Wall, and the bees. In the novel, Black Mary represents something different for each character. For the store clerk and the people in the town, they see Black Mary as a label on a honey bottle. The clerk tells Lily that most people do not buy the honey “‘cause it’s got the Virgin Mary pictured as a colored women” (Kidd 64). For the Boatwright sisters, it stands for something completely diverse. They call Black Mary the Black Madonna. She represents their hope and aspiration, as well as their religion. Every night before they go to sleep, the Daughters of Mary all pray and worship the wooden statue. Another symbol she stands for is female power. Because of this, August Boatwright is able to help Lily become a powerful woman, and be able to stand up to other students and even T. Ray. Lastly, Black Mary signifies a connection Lily has with her mother because she found the wooden picture with some of her belongings. Through this picture, Lily is able to find a family that will love her and take care of her as if she had been part of it from the very beginning. Not only does it bring Lily closer to her mother, it also symbolizes...
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...“The whole fabric of honey bee society depends on communication- on an innate ability to send and receive messages, to encode and decode information.” (passage 1) In the classic novel The Secret Life of Bees, author Sue Monk Kidd uses the bee colony as a symbol to show how close-knit the Boatwright sisters, Lily, Rosaleen and the rest of the Daughters of Mary are and how they’d do anything to protect each other. In nature, bees and their colonies are exactly the same way. Throughout the novel, especially in the beginning, readers get a close understanding of how the main character, Lily Owens’, father, T. Ray, is inexplicably abusive. This harsh environment carries in towards the end of the story when T.Ray shows up to the Boatwright house where Lily is staying, intent on bringing her home with him. However, the Daughters of Mary come to her rescue with just a call from August. “The four of them lined up beside us, clutching their pocketbooks up against their bodies like they might have to use them to beat the living hell out of somebody. I wondered how we must look to him. A bunch of women- Mabelee four foot ten, Lunelle’s hair standing straight up on her head begging to be braided, Violet muttering, “Blessed Mary,” and Queenie- tough old Queenie- with her hands on her hips and her lip shoved out, every inch of her saying,...
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...Early on, August, the eldest Boatwright, introduces Lily to spiritual life of the Daughter's of Mary. This religion is very important because the symbol of the religion, the black Madonna, is also on the honey the sisters produce, highlighting its significance. In a literary criticism by, Charles Brower, an editor and freelance writer, he criticizes Kidd's The Secret Life of Bees positively and admires the picture Kidd paints of the power of faith within the novel. He states, "Kidd was a practicing Southern Baptist for most of the first forty years of her life but had a spiritual awakening that led her to reconnect with her feminine soul, as she terms it—"a woman's inner repository of the Divine Feminine" (Brower). Kidd's spark of feminism and faith filled background is clearly influenced in her creation of the Daughter's of Mary and its symbolic Black Madonna. August explains to Lily the power of faith and says, "You don't have to put your hand on Mary's heart to get strength and consolation and rescue, and...
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...Bless Me Ultima Part One In Bless Me Ultima, Rudolfo Anaya uses descriptive diction to communicate the majesty of the Golden Carp. Using words such as, beauty and grandeur, in context with the word silence, shows the power the appearance of the carp seemed to hold over the two boys. When Anaya speaks of Cico holding his hand to his chest the carp glides by it helps the reader to understand the importance of the Golden Carp. As the carp gives a “switch of its powerful tail,” the reader can infer the carp must be one of the stronger fish. The diction Anaya chose helps the reader to better visualize the importance and majesty of the carp’s appearance to the boys. Bless Me Ultima Part Two Topic | Tone | Theme | Family Expectations | Contemplative | Throughout life we try to please others without losing our way in the fight of good and evil. | Loss of Innocence | Fearful | Good vs. Evil | Objective | In Bless Me Ultima, Rudolfo Anaya, communicates a theme of family expectations through the opposing views of Tony’s parents. Tony’s mother wants her son to become a priest. This dream is fostered at the birth of her son, when he is born under a full moon. Tony’s mother’s brothers want him to become a priest and work with them on the farm because he is a Luna. Meanwhile Tony’s father hopes for his youngest son to become a vaquero or cowboy, like he once was. Tony’s father argues that his son is a Marez and he will wander the countryside like vaqueros. Tony’s...
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...running away from her abusive father, Lily unwittingly set in motion a series of encounters and experiences that would later help to define her own character. This novel is the story of Lily’s coming-of-age, a sequence of events of drastic mental maturation, and in each of the most critical encounters and experiences, Kidd emphasized their meanings through the application of devices, such as indirect characterization, symbolism, and allusion. Together, they demonstrated what Lily believed in, what she wanted...
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...Could you ever imagine you are the reason your mother is gone? That you were the one who killed her? That is something our main character, Lily, has to deal with every day. The Secret Life of Bees is a novel about a young girl who leaves her father in search of a new life and ends up finding the Boatwright sisters and finds out more regarding mother. Lily’s journey hasn’t been easy especially when it came to her mother, Deborah. Her mother died when Lily was 4 years old. Lily shot her on accident and killed her. So naturally Lily feels so much guilt from that, idealization followed, then hatred, then forgiveness, and lastly acceptance. This all happened in a span of about 6 weeks. In Sue Monk Kidd’s, The Secret Life of Bees, Lily moves through stages of guilt for what she did, infatuation with her mother, anger, forgiveness, and then acceptance that everyone makes mistakes....
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