In Chris Cleaves Little Bee, all of the characters wear some kind of disguise that hides their true identity. The characters all wear different disguises in order to sustain their personal conditions. Little Bee, one of two protagonists in the book, disguises herself in three different ways to protect herself from any harm that can ensue as a result of true identity. She is young, sixteen year old Nigerian girl that travels to England to escape the conditions of her native country. From the moment she sets foot on English soil, she is taken into an immigration detention center where she is confined because she does not have papers proving her age. Little bee undergoes trauma through her first experiences in England and has all sense of hope shattered. She has to disguise herself in every way possible by: changing how she looks physically for protection for others, learning how to speak the “Queens English” in order to fit in, and even refrain from revealing what her real name is. This leads her to having no real identity. It is not until she is released from the detention center and taken in by Sarah, another protagonist, and her son Charlie, that she starts to regain her confidence and begin to shed her disguise to reveal her true identity.
Little Bee goes through a traumatic experience during her confinement at the detention center and has to apply major changes to her identity in order to survive. Little Bee’s vision however was not narrow as she is able to plan how she wants to change herself to survive both inside and outside of the detention center. To begin with, she is initially concerned about her own safety within the detention center since both the men and women share the same space in the daylight. She feels as if the...
... middle of paper ...
...o protect herself and blend in with the majority.
Following the traumatic experience in the detention center, Little Bee is taken in by Sarah and her son Charlie. They provide her with a home and the sense of having a family that she can trust and communicate her troubles with. This is a crucial position for Little Bee to be in because she has been experiencing situations that made her lose her sense of hope and belief that her conditions might improve. She tries to find ways commit suicide wherever she goes just in case matters get worse, that way she could relieve herself from all the pressure: “whenever I go into a new place, I work out how I would kill myself there” (Cleave 47) .So by having someone to communicate with and trust, it sparks the sense of hope and rebuilds her confidence. Moreover, Sarah and Charlie play a major role in Little Bee’s development.
Most runaway youth are homeless because of neglect, abuse and violence, not because of choice. Lily Owens is the protagonist in the novel, Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd, is no different. Lily is a fourteen year-old girl still grieving over her mother's death. T. Ray a man who has never been able to live up to the title of a father, due to years of abuse, has not made it any easier. Lily is a dynamic character who in the beginning is negative and unconfident. However, throughout the novel Lily starts to change into the forgiving person she is at the end.
As strong, independent, self-driven individuals, it is not surprising that Chris McCandless and Lily Owens constantly clashed with their parents. In Jon Krakauer’s novel, Into the Wild, Chris was a twenty-four-year-old man that decided to escape the materialistic world of his time for a life based on the simplistic beauty of nature. He graduated at the top of his class at Emory University and grew up in affluent Annandale, Virginia, during the early 1980’s. In The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, Lily was a fourteen-year-old girl who grew up in the 1960’s, a time when racial equality was a struggle. She had an intense desire to learn about her deceased mother. Her nanny, Rosaleen, with whom she grew very close over the years, raised Lily with little help from her abusive father. When her father failed to help Rosaleen after three white men hospitalized her, Lily was hysterical. Later, Lily decided to break Rosaleen out of the hospital and leave town for good. While there are differences between Chris McCandless and Lily Owens, they share striking similarities. Chris McCandless’ and Lily Owens’s inconsistencies of forgiveness with their parents resulted in damaged relationships and an escape into the unknown.
A beehive without a queen is a community headed for extinction. Bees cannot function without a queen. They become disoriented and depressed, and they stop making honey. This can lead to the destruction of the hive and death of the bees unless a new queen is brought in to guide them. Then, the bees will cooperate and once again be a prosperous community. Lily Melissa Owens, the protagonist of Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees, faces a similar predicament. While she does not live in a physical hive, the world acts as a hive. She must learn to work with its inhabitants, sharing a common direction, in order to reach her full potential. The motif of the beehive is symbolic of how crucial it is to be a part of a community in order to achieve
Throughout The Secret Life of Bees , there is no shortage of symbolism, coming directly from its namesake, bees. Each connection draws upon the deep and rich meaning behind this wonderful composed text. The bees, however, never are a scapegoat. Similar to Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird character Atticus, they never allow for shortcuts or disillusion with reality. They force you to see the world as it is, and to accept it, and send love to it, for it is all you can, when you are as insignificant as a
Lily’s biases in The Secret Life Of Bees have altered greatly she now knows that people of color have the ability to fend for themselves, and that they can be strong and influential people.
The themes of hatred and judgment are shown all throughout Little Bee. Whether it’s Lawrence’s threats, the carelessness of the detention officers, or the sideways glances from the relatives at Andrew’s funeral, Little Bee is always in the middle of some kind of judgment. However, there is one character that shows pure love and understanding for Little Bee, no matter her exterior or culture. Charlie O’Rourke may be considered naïve, but it’s his naivety that allows him to see past the discrimination Little Bee receives. He is the prime example of how children are often blind to this type of abhorrence. Charlie gives the readers insight into this phenomenon by allowing Little Bee to comfort him and by finally removing his Batman costume.
“It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters in the end.” -Ernest Hemingway. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd is a coming-of-age novel written in the form of first person, using the internal monologue of a tween girl named Lily who lives in the very hostile, racist environment of South Carolina in the 1960’s. Lily lives in a household with her African American maid and only friend, Rosaleen, and her abusive father, T. Ray, who informs Lily that she was the one who killed her deceased mother as a child. In a search to find clues that deny this claim, Lily and Rosaleen set out to Tiburon, SC, a place her mother has indicated on the back of an unusual picture of a Black Madonna. The basis of the novel
The opening quote of chapter ten, from The Dancing Bees, states, “Threatened by all kinds of dangers during their foraging flights, many workers die before they have reached even that age” (189). Bees face many dangers within their lives, resulting in early deaths. To start, May’s faces dangers too. Although, unlike the bees, her dangers include depression and sorrow. May feels the pain of the world. Kidd writes, “Everything just comes into her [May]--all the suffering out there--and she feels as if it is happening to her” (95). May cannot differentiate between her own pain and that of the world’s. Because of this, sadness has become a daily thing in May’s life. May and the bees are challenged with many problems daily. To finish, May, like bees, had an early death. May kills herself after finding out Zach is in prison. Her suicide note read, as Kidd writes, “I’m tired of carrying around the weight of the world. I’m just going to lay it down now. It’s my time to die, and it’s your time to live” (210). May ended her life because of the hardships she faced. Her early death is evidenced by May telling her sisters that it is their time to live. Both May and worker bees have early deaths. To conclude, the bee quotes Sue Monk Kidd used in her novel, The Secret Life of Bees, have a deeper
Sonsyrea Tate’s statement about “home” aligns with Sue Monk Kidd’s novel, The Secret Life of Bees. In this novel, the main character, Lily Owens, embarks on a Bildungsroman journey after leaving her birth home to find her true identity and “home.” The idea of “home” guides Lily on a path of self-discovery and leads her to the pink house and the feminine society that lies within, in which she finds true empowerment and womanhood in her life.
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.
In life, actions and events that occur can sometimes have a greater meaning than originally thought. This is especially apparent in The Secret Life Of Bees, as Sue Monk Kidd symbolically uses objects like bees, hives, honey, and other beekeeping means to present new ideas about gender roles and social/community structures. This is done in Lily’s training to become a beekeeper, through August explaining how the hive operates with a queen, and through the experience Lily endures when the bees congregate around her.
People share their secret lives without even talking about them. It only takes a glance or feeling to see that others have faced similar situations and problems, some people even live parallel lives. Despite the fact that many people believe it impossible for a measly insect, like a bee, to know the pain hardships a human faces, Sue Monk Kidd proves them wrong with her book The Secret Life of Bees. In her novel she derives many of her characters from the types of bees that exist in a hive. Lily and Zach have characteristic that are akin to that of field bees, August has that nurturing personality of a nurse bee, and the Lady of Chains is revered by her subjects just like a Queen bee is by her hive. Nowadays, no one ever faces a problem that someone, or something, has already faced. No one really has a secret life all to themselves.
“Someone who thinks death is the scariest thing doesn't know a thing about life,” says Lily Owens in The Secret Life of Bees. This quote reveals that Lily, the main character in this novel, gains real wisdom. Later, Lily also gains a clear vision about the most important entities in life. Lily, with her new found wisdom, is ready to experience the real world, flaws and all. She does not only limit herself to anything- but also, she is ready for life’s dangers, endeavors, and in general, anything life throws at her. As she grows as an individual, her strength increases tremendously. This novel is narrated by fourteen year
Ruth, Elizabeth. “The Secret Life of Bees Traces the Growth of Lily’s Social Consciousness.” Coming of Age in Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees. Ed. Dedria Bryfonski. Detroit: Greenhaven, 2013. 63-65. Print. Social Issues in Literature. Rpt. of “Secret Life of Bees.” The Globe and Mail 2 Mar. 2002: n. pag.
the boy’s enjoyment and they were able to kill them successfully because the bees were smaller