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Secret life of bees essay
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The author relies upon details and language to convey the speaker’s abandoned and enraged attitude. In The Secret Life of Bees, Lily felt abandoned when her father, T.Ray failed to exhibit affection and abused her. Some details she mentioned early on, being that: “I had asked God repeatedly to do something about T.Ray. He’d gone to church for forty years and was only getting worse.” When Lily undertook in an activity that irked or agitated T.Ray, he would force her to kneel on Grits, which she reported was utterly painful. Despite her dilemmas, Lily’s main concern in life was to find out if she was definitely the root of her mother, Deborah’s, death. When she questioned T.Ray about this he alleged, “The truth is, your mother ran off and left you.” This left Lily feeling heartbroken by her …show more content…
She believed that her mother’s death was not her fault, or that she might even still be alive. As a matter of fact, one day, Lily was studying her mother’s possessions, and observed a town called Tiburon on the back of a photograph. This is the location in which she was inspired to escape to in hope of finding some evidence of her mother, Deborah, there. While Lily was in Tiburon, she settled in the “Honey House” along with August, May, and June. There, she discovered that August had known Deborah, and worked for her family when she was young. This revelation made Lily ecstatic to know that she was in the right place. However, T.Ray eventually scouted out her location. But in the end, T.Ray had a change of heart and chose to withdraw from Lily. She pronounced that, “he drove away slowly, not tearing down the road like I expected.” This displays Lily’s attitude towards T.Ray before he had a change of mind. Immediately, the reader could tell how joyful she was with her new life in Tiburon, but was still enraged at her circumstances back home in
T.Ray, her father, has a very large lack of sensitivity towards Lily in regard to this event in their life. “The truth is, your sorry mother ran off and left you. The day she died, she'd comeback to get her things, that's all. You can hate me all you want, but she’s the one who left you." (Kidd, 39). After an argument between Lily and her father, he tells her that Deborah left her. He also makes fun of her attempts to improve her knowledge by reading books. “Who do you think you are, Julius Shakespeare?” (Kidd, 16). Events continue to occur where T.Ray proves he’s not a good fit for a father position in her life, and they eventually lead her to build a hatred for him, which will lead her on her journey to discovering more about her mother. “When T. Ray gives Lily a hard time about bird droppings on the floor, Lily realizes Rosaleen must lover her ‘beyond reason’ when she stands up to T.Ray and defends Lily’s pet.” (Hebert, 14). Rosaleen is a black woman who cares for the Owen’s household; she is the first character that acts as Lily’s mother figure. “At the beginning of the novel Lily perceives Rosaleen as a protector – someone who is willing to create a safer environment – something Lily desperately needs for her emotional growth.” (Herbert, 14). Rosaleen is portrayed as Lily’s defender against T.Ray. Rosaleen is the first mother figure to enter the story
Lily’s idea of home is having loving parent/mother figures who can help guide her in life. Because of this desire, she leaves T. Ray and begins to search for her true identity. This quest for acceptance leads her to meet the Calendar Sisters. This “home” that she finds brightly displays the ideas of identity and feminine society. Though Lily could not find these attributes with T. Ray at the peach house, she eventually learns the truth behind her identity at the pink house, where she discovers the locus of identity that resides within herself and among the feminine community there. Just like in any coming-of-age story, Lily uncovers the true meaning of womanhood and her true self, allowing her to blossom among the feminine influence that surrounds her at the pink house. Lily finds acceptance among the Daughters of Mary, highlighting the larger meaning of acceptance and identity in the novel.
I really was impacted by T. Ray’s quote during the height of the tension about Lily’s past mistakes, “ ‘It was you who did it, Lily. You didn’t mean it, but it was you’ ” (Kidd 299). This moment was one of my favorites because it showed the growth the lead character had made toward not only forgiving her mother, but forgiving herself. When Lily chases after her father to finally get the raw truth about the fateful day her mom died, it reveals that she is finally ready to come to terms with her past, no matter what really happened. At the beginning of the book, she can’t accept her mother’s death, her disappearance, and her lack of love from her parents. Coincidentally, she grasps at any excuse to punish herself because she is unsure of who she is.
T. Ray from The Secret Life of Bees seems to be mean and horrible in the novel, but this essay proves otherwise. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd takes place in South Carolina during the Civil Rights Era, where Lily, the main character, lives. This time period is an important part of American history and many of the characters go through some dramatic changes and discover new elements of themselves. The focus of this essay will be on T. Ray, Lily’s father, who grows as a character throughout the novel, and is dishonest and controlling in the beginning of the novel. This is in view of the fact that T. Ray is very protective of Lily, but learns to let her go, realizing that she is better off with the Boatwright sisters.
In conclusion, although Lily did not fully accomplish her stated reason to go on a quest, she did learn a lot about herself and her worth. The novel, The Secret Life of Bees, met
Heart break, joy, love, happiness, The Book The Secret Life of Bees has it all! The book is about a young girls that accidentally shot her mother. After spending nine years with her abusive, and emotionally absent father, she decides to run away. So, she breaks her beloved nanny out of prison, and Lily escapes to Tiburon South Carolina, a town she links to her mother through the writing on one of her old possessions. While in Tiburon, Lily finds the calendar sisters three very different, very helpful sisters. The family agrees to take Lilly in, despite the fact that almost every white person in town frowns upon the very idea of this white girl staying in an African American household. While staying with the sisters, August, May, and June, Lily learns lots of things, ranging from bee keeping, to why and how her mother first left her. She falls in love, explores her past, and finds it within herself to forgive her mother for leaving her, and herself, for shooting her mom. This book is rich in both emotion, and culture.
Intro: Working around the hives; dedicated and faster with each movement. Honey drizzling in golden crevices; a family unit working together, buzzing in harmony. Bees and beehives is a significant motif in the novel Secret Life of Bees: By Sue Monk Kidd because it represents the community of women in the novel. It also represents Lily Owen’s longing and need for a mother figure in her life. And finally, it was significant because the bees lived a secret life, just as Lily and Rosaleen did in the novel.
At age four, Lily Owens accidentally kills her mother in an act to help her. As she was handing her mother a gun, her mother dropped it. The gun then backfired on her and kills Lily’s mom. Lily is clearly traumatized by this event. As soon as Lily enters the Boatwright home, she is overcome with motherly love. Raub writes, “Upon settling into her new life in Tiburon, Lily finds motherly love where she did not expect it” (Raub 1). Some love is received from Rosaleen and August and the rest from the Black Madonna. Lily is also well received by the black sisterhood. “Lily enters a loving, compassionate world of the feminine divine, a black sisterhood grounded in worship of the Black Madonna” (Hamilton and Jones 2). August, one of the Boatwright sisters, becomes a mother figure to Lily. August is not only a mother to her, but as well, her spiritual mentor in the book. The Boatwright sisters love her in different ways. August lets Lily to open up and cry to her like a mother would. The Black Madonna was a major idea and religious feature in The Secret Life of Bees. “The Black Madonna, a symbol of freedom and consolation, wraps her veil of protection over the oppressed African American women and the abused Lily in the pink house” (Hebb 2). Lily is raised a Baptist and has hardly ever heard of the Mother of God, who only appears at Christmas in the Protestant doctrine. By the end of the summer, she has experienced the truth about what
Within this world, people become self-governed after going through difficult times. In this novel, a fourteen-year-old white girl, Lily Owen’s, determination leads her to find contentment and another self-ruled woman, August Boatwright. After running away from home, Lily meets August and her two black sisters who maintain a large apiary to produce honey. Although some people work efficiently together, independent persons seek true happiness with their experiences as shown in the novel, The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. Throughout the novel, Lily and August prove the importance of independence by managing their lives and taking care of their loved ones.
“Even in the dark I could see that it was dying, and doing it alone in the middle of all these un-concerned pines. That was the absolute way of things. Loss takes up inside of everything sooner or later and eats right through it,” (Kidd 55). This is eerie for someone who only just dodges supplementary prison time, but deciphers Lily’s logic of how life worked. A lone pine provokes speculation most did not mull over until they are older. While disaster overwhelms others, guilt consumes Lily. “I was speculating how one day, years from now, I would send the store a dollar in an envelope to cover it, spelling out how much guilt had dominated every moment of my life, when I found myself looking at a picture of the black Mary,” (Kidd 63). Lily at no instant in the novel indicates mailing the envelope or the assumed regret she would posses when she regards the Black Mary. This affair does not suggest years from now she would not send the dollar. This exposes that while she may execute seldom vile things, she would try to rectify them. Lily’s emotions also fluster after perceiving the statue of the Black Mary. “I didn’t know what to think, but what I felt was magnetic and so big it ached like the moon had entered my chest and filled it up….Standing there, I loved myself and I hated myself. That’s what the black Mary did to me, made me feel my glory and shame at the same time,” (Kidd 70-71). Lily is skeptical of how to react in the presence of the Black Mary which proves she still has yet to unravel her sincere feelings towards the Black Mary. Lily interrogates the rift between blacks and whites, this time Tiburon. “Staying in a black house with black woman….it was not something I was against….I thought they could be smart, but not as smart as me, me being white,” (Kidd 78). Lily is taken aback when August is so refine considering everything she determined about black women
Ray and her nanny, Rosaleen. T. Ray has told Lily that she is the one that killed her mother when she was four years old, but Lily does not believe her father and wants to find the real truth. Lily leaves Sylvan, South Carolina so she can find out more information about her mother; this is when she finds the Boatwright sisters and her life is changed.
A poignant and touching classic, The Secret Life of Bees details the coming of age stories of a young girl named Lily. Her life up until the start of the novel was hard, she was friendless with an abusive father and a heavy conscience, as she believes that she is responsible for her mother’s death. Lily’s only solace is her stand-in-mother, a black woman named Rosaleen, so when Rosaleen is hauled to jail for standing up for herself, Lily decided to run away to a mysterious town that has some linkage to her mother. Her escapades lead her to three, wonderful, eclectic, devout followers of Mary, and to a new life. As the story unfolds, an elaborate symbol lies hidden just beneath the surface, one that seems so obvious, but only lies as a hidden
The setting in the Secret life of bees helps set the overall structure of the book. As the setting changes, and certain events take place, so does the characters views on life. The most change seen is on Lily, the main character. Her values multiply and her perspective on cultural order shifts from one mind set to another. Although one part of the book’s setting limits the opportunities of the characters; the other part opens those and different opportunities. The setting in The Secret Life of Bees is vitally important because it impacts the main character and the people around her through events that transpire in the book.
Do you ever wonder how much you have changed in the past year? Not just physically, but in every aspect. Lily Owens in The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd matures throughout the novel. Lily Owens matures because of her spiritual development. Also, she matures because of her social consciousness and her relationship with Zach. Sue Monk Kidd portrays the theme “coming of age” as difficult in The Secret Life of Bees.
Over the course of several months, August guides, teaches, and helps Lily to accept and forgive herself. August once knew Deborah, and she knows that Lily is her daughter, but she does not confront Lily about the issue. Instead, she waits until Lily puts the puzzle pieces together and discovers for herself the relationship between her mother and August. August knows she is not ready to learn the truth about her mother when she and Lily first meet, so she waits for Lily to come to her. When Lily finally realizes the truth, she comes to August and they have a long discussion about Deborah. During this discussion, Lily learns the truth about her mother; that her mother only married T. Ray because she was pregnant with Lily, then after several years she had enough of living and dealing with T. Ray, so she left. Lily is disgusted by the fact that her mother would've done something like this, she did not want to let go of the romantic image of her mother she had painted in her mind (“‘The Secret Life of Bees’ Themes and Symbols of The Secret Life of Bees). Lily struggles to stomach the fact the her mother truly did leave her and she spends some time feeling hurt and angry, but one day, August shows her a picture of Lily and her mother. As Lily looks at the picture she is comforted and thinks, “May must’ve made it to heaven and explained to my mother about the sign I wanted. The one that would let me know I was loved” (Kidd 276). Seeing