...The novel, The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, shows the tragic events in a young girls life and demonstrates how she overcomes her problems and finds herself. Lily Owens starts out as a troubled and confused girl. By the end of the book she overcomes her obstacles and becomes a confident young woman. Lily uses the pain from her father's abuse and mother's absence to mature into a young woman. When the story starts out, Lily Owens is a little girl who has always been put down by her father and as a result has a lack of confidence and lack of hope for the future. When lily thinks she hears bees buzzing in her room she called for her fathers help and T-Ray said " I guess they must have flown out of that cuckoo clock you call a brain. You wake me up again, lily, and I'll go get the Martha Whites, you hear me?" (Page 31/734). This shows here that she was abused physically and mentally . Instead of receiving comfort from her father Lily was made fun of and threatened. Obviously from the quote, we learn that the emotional and physical abuse were already a pattern in Lily's life. Already Lily's strength of character surfaces. Although she was afraid of her fathers form of punishment her courage and boldness are demonstrated when she says "still I couldn't let the master go entirely- T-ray thinking I was so desperate I would invent an invasion of bees to get attention. Which is how I got the bright idea of catching a jar of these bees, presenting them to T-Ray and saying...
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...102 12/10/13 Secret Life of Bees In 1964, Lily Owens is fourteen years old. She has no mother, a father whom she despises, and no friends to turn to when she needs a shoulder to cry on. Not only does Lily have to deal with feelings of loneliness and betrayal caused by her parents, but in a time troubled by negativity towards the Civil Rights Act, she is also faced with situations that force her to grow up very fast. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd is a page turning novel about Lily’s journey to find answers to her past. There are themes and symbolisms throughout the book. Racism, forgiveness/coping, and bees are big ones for many characters throughout the novel. The summer of 1964 in South Carolina comes at the peak for race relationships in American history, a summer when much of white Americans showed no respect towards the blacks. The nature of racism is discussed throughout Lily’s story. It is important to understand she grew up in the South, where races were separated by both law and attitudes. Lily does not attempt to reconcile her love for Rosaleen with her understanding that blacks are inferior to whites. “Rosaleen pulled back the towel; I saw an inch-long gash across a puffy place high over her eyebrow.” (Kidd). Is one of the first times she started to see racism, but not to the fullest understanding. When Rosaleen’s life is threatened by a system that Lily doesn’t understand, she knows only that she must save Rosaleen’s life, even if it means...
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...Symbolism is the subtext in everyday life that connects us to other people, places, and things that contain deeper meanings. In the novel, The Secret Life of Bees, Sue Monk Kidd explains how the main the main character, Lily, has been going through her life and the many obstacles that come along with it. Through the book, many objects help symbolize things from her past or things she is starting to connect with, not just bees. Sue Monk Kidd mostly uses the bees in the The Secret Life of Bees to represent guidance, some of the characters’ roles in Lily’s life, and society in general. The symbols of the bees help Kidd convey the theme that one must rely on her “hive” in order to make it through life. Guidance was continuously shown throughout...
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...The secret life of bees is a story based on a girl that is only 14 years old living in Sylvan, South Carolina, in 1964 which is located in the south that runs away from home for the simple reason that she just wants to be free of all the bad things in her life. But how does that connect to the relationship with lily and her parents and how it changes thought the novel ? Well it really does connect to the relationship of lily and her parents, because most of lily's problems are attributed to the connection she had with her parent or more like the connection she didn't have with her parents . For example lily didn't really have a connection with her mom, due to the fact that she was killed. And not by just anyone, at the beginning of the novel lily is told by T-ray lily's father at a young age she...
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...The Secret Life Of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd. Book Report, Dorthea Søiland The secret life of bees centres on Lily’s search for clues and connections to her mother, who was killed when Lily was a little girl. We get to follow her journey as she runs away from her abusive father along with her nanny Rosaleen. Lily is longing to be loved, because the lack of it in her past life is destroying her. “People who think dying is the worst 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....
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...The Secret Life of Bees The movie, The Secret Life of Bees, takes place in the summer of 1964 in Sylvan, South Carolina. This movie was not my first pick for the course paper, but it came on TV one night recently and I decided to watch it. This was a really good film and it showed how racism plagued our country not so long ago. Conflict Theory, originally the brainchild of Karl Marx, is the theoretical perspective that best fits this movie (Brym and Lie, 11). Racism, prejudice, and discrimination are the main focus of this movie while also telling the story of a young teenage girl named Lily (The Secret Life of Bees). Lily doesn’t see in colors or race, but sees only in the love, character, and value of a person. Lily, a young white girl,...
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...The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd has many life lessons in it. It has examples of family problems, racial problems, and it also shows how love is not affected just because of race. In the book, Lily's life is compared to a bee's life constantly. From how she is lost without the queen bee, or in other words her mom, or how Lily needs the touch and care from loved ones just like the bees do. One epigraph from chapter nine says “ The whole fabric of honey bee society depends on communication- on an innate ability to send and receive messages, to encode and decode information”, this quote is related to not just this chapter, but this whole book because Lily is not always truthful about her life back in Sylvan and she does not tell the Boatwright sisters everything that is going on. In chapter nine, Lily has an internal conflict and begins to feel bad about her lies that she has been telling August. She wants to tell August the truth but she is afraid that the truth will do more bad than good and that August will call T. Ray to come get Lily. Some of the lies Lily has told August...
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...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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...In the novel ‘The Secret Life of Bees’ written by Sue Monk Kidd a 14-year-old little white girl, Lily Owens, lives with her terrible father, T.Ray, who never gives his love and interest to her. For the reason, she decides to run away from her father and moves from Sylvan to Tiburon. In Tiburon she meets a new reliable guardian, August. By giving two different relationships, the author, Sue Monk Kidd, helps us to understand ‘Love’ which is one of the themes in the novel. The first relationship is between Lily and her father, T.Ray, who is insensitive and cruel to Lily because he never gives his affection, and he punishes her in brutal way. Lily spends on upsetting time with her father after her mother passed away when Lily was 4 years old....
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...The Secret Life of Blacks Sue Monk Kidd is a writer from Sylvester, Georgia, best known for her 2002 novel The Secret Life of Bees. The novel begins with a 14 year old, Lily Owens, in the summer of 1964 in Sylvan, South Carolina o runs away with her black housekeeper and stays with a black family. Lily lived with T. Ray, her father, and her housekeeper, Rosaleen. T. Ray, being abusive, lead Lily’s mother away. She eventually comes back in efforts to get a then 4 year old Lily. In the heat of an argument with her husband, Deborah drops a gun that Lily accidentally picks up and kills her mother. The Secret Life of Bees is a book that shows many types of interracial interactions such as; mentor-mentee, intimate relationship, caregiver, friendship, resentment, and hatred. The mentor-mentee relationship in this book is expressed by Clayton Forrest and Zach Taylor. Zach’s aspiration to be a lawyer, a title not commonly held by a black american, is questioned by all, except Clayton Forrest. Clayton Forrest instead of knocking his dreams, mentors him and teaches Zach about lawyer duties, even giving him stuff to read and keeping him updated in some legal matters. Seeing...
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...Literary Analysis “The Secret Life of Bees” Sometimes in life you could feel broken and alone. Whenever someone is hurting you in any way or you just feel alone and you have nobody you can trust with your problems. In “The Secret Life of Bees” by Sue Monk Kidd the protagonist named Lily Owen escapes an abusive home to learn more about her dead mother’s past where she learns the value of love, friendship, and family. And she learns that you will always find people you belong with. the main character Lily Owens has been abused almost her whole life by her father named T-Ray. Lily says she “I asked God to do something about T-Ray but it's only getting worse”(pg.3). After Lily’s mother left when Lily was 4 years old T-Ray has been taking out his anger on Lily and the matter was made worse after the death of her mother that Lily likely caused. T-Ray insults, lies, ignores, and punishes Lily by making her kneel on grits until she is bleeding. “‘As long as you live under my roof...
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...me read”. “The Secret Life of Bees”, a drama written by Sue Monk Kidd was published by Viking in 2002. A story about a young girl named Lily from South Carolina who was abused and abandoned by her parents, 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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...During The Secret Life of Bees, we can visualize many different themes. Throughout the novel, we see Lily begin to mature and grow as a character. She deals with a lot of ups and downs throughout her life and the book, and she learns how to deal with them. In The Secret Life of Bees, Sue Monk Kidd uses racism and equality to argue a theme that everyone should be treated fairly, have the same rights, and have respect for one another, and that we are all the same no matter our race. This book ties into the 1960’s because during this time, the same racial problems were happening as well. In the beginning of the novel, we soon realize that Lily’s mother had died a few years earlier, and that Rosaleen was there to help around the house and...
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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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