Characters who grow up in literature change throughout the course of the story. Often, towards the end of the story, they learn a lesson and become different people. In The Secret Life of Bees, a novel by Sue Monk Kidd, the main character, Lily Owens, learns to face the world.
At the beginning of The Secret Life of Bees, Lily was a completely different person compared to her behavior at the end of the novel. While she lives with her father, T-Ray, an abusive and cruel man, Lily feels insecure. For example, on page twenty-five, Lily quotes, “My knees had been tortured like this enough times in my life that I’d stopped thinking of it as out of the ordinary; it was just something you had to put up with from time to time, like the common cold.” Specifically, Lily is referring to the times her father had her kneel on grits as punishment. Since Lily was always tortured and had no mother, she felt unloved and isolated. For instance, on page eight, Lily said, “T-Ray didn’t believe in slumber parties or sock hops, which wasn’t
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When T-Ray commands Lily to leave the Boatwright’s residence and come home with him she refuses. On page 296, Lily says, “I’m staying here.” This suggests Lily clearly feels loved and at home with the Boatwrights. After a great deal of convincing, T-Ray gives in and let Lily stay with the Boatwrights. Due to this, she has many advantages. Specifically, now that she is going to the same school as Zach, her relationship with him might grow. Also, after sinking information about her mother into her heart, Lily begins to accept her mother’s death. For example, on page 278, Lily quoted, “I wrapped my mother’s things in the falling-apart paper, tucked them back in the hatbox, and put a lid on it. Lying on my stomach on the floor, I pushed the box under the cot.” This indicates that she is ready to stop thinking about the past and move on with her
First, Kidd highlights the power of strength through indirectly characterizing Lily as a courageous young woman to display the character’s growing maturity throughout the novel. Her courageousness is demonstrated after T Ray, Lily’s father, picks her up from jail. Upon arriving home, it is clear that Lily is displeased about how T Ray handled the situation. Vexed and irritated, she challenges him: “‘You don’t scare me,’ I repeated, louder this time. A brazen feeling had broken loose in me, a daring something that had been locked up in my chest’” (38). Even though Lily knows that disrespecting her father will mean terrible consequences, kneeling on Martha White grits, she proceeds
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.
...heir parents resulted in damaged relationships and escapes into the unknown. Chris was intelligent and well rounded, but he had several flaws, specifically his inability to make peace with his parents. He could not dismiss the mistakes his parents had made and hurt not only himself but also his entire family in the process. Lily was young, but mature beyond her age. She made impulsive decisions, such as running away with her nanny, but it did not ruin the flawed relationship with her father. Instead, it led to the truth she so desperately needed and a better relationship with her father. Lily’s leaving was the best thing she could have done for herself. Both Chris and Lily left with similar intentions but saw different results. Chris reached the realization that isolationism is not the best policy, and Lily was brought into a world filled with love and truth.
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.
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.
For example, T. Ray punishes Lily by making her kneel on grits and verbally abuses her. Lily resents T. Ray for his brutality and gains the desire to flee her birth home. This shows that Lily desires more than just a physical house to live in, but also loving parental figures who can help guide her in life and show her love. This quest for acceptance led her to meet the Calendar Sisters.
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.
In The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd Lily has assumptions, biases, and prejudices about race that are changing over the course of the novel.
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.
The character who changed the most in the novel, The Secret Life of Bees, was Lily Owens. Firstly, Lily’s change stems from her abnormal relationship with T. Ray. T. Ray abuses Lily. Sue Monk Kidd writes when Lily is punished with grits, “I swayed from knee to knee, hoping for a second or two of relief, but the pain cut deep into my skin” (24). This punishment physically hurt Lily, and aided to the constant physical abuse performed by T. Ray. From the beginning of Lily’s life, she is afraid of doing wrong to avoid horrible punishments. Therefore, Lily believed that she is unloved. Secondly, Lily’s actions motivated change. The moment when Lily finally told August Boatwright the startling truth about her past, is the moment she learns to trust
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.
In the book, Lily was narrating what she was feeling and thinking throughout the entirety of the book which added a lot of important elements that tied in the theme and importance of the bees in the development of the plot. This is an important difference because the movie seems to be missing some very important elements due to the absence of this narration. The title the Secret Life of Bees makes much less sense for the movie because the narration gives the reader an insight into how the bees contribute to the story. The movie seems to be more about the group of women becoming stronger together than the book because without this narration, it is harder to know how Lily is feeling. In contrast the book seems more about Lily’s journey because this narration is present explaining to the reader how Lily feels and what she thinks in each
Lily has a lot of mother figures in her life. In ?The Secret Life of Bees? two mother figures that she has are Rosaleen and August. A mother cares for her young and guides them trough life. She comforts and soothes them when they need it. Lily?s Mothers are Rosaleen and August. Both act as mothers for Lily in different ways.
The first example of Lily’s coming of age is in her spiritual development. She is introduced to the Daughters of Mary, who connect her to the Black Madonna. When Lily first sees the Black Madonna, she thought that:
The Secret Life of Bees delineates an inspirational story in which the community, friendship and faith guide the human spirit to overcome anything. The story follows Lily Owens, a 14 year old girl who desperately wants to discover the cause of her mothers death. Her father T. Ray gives her no answers, which leads their maid, Rosaleen, to act as her guardian. Together, Lily and Rosaleen run away to Tiburon, South Carolina and find a welcoming community. It is in Tiburon that Lily learns many life lessons, including many about herself. In her novel The Secret Life of Bees, Sue Monk Kidd explores a theme of spiritual growth through Lily's search for home as well as a maternal figure.