In the novel, The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, the themes and issues presented in the book are illustrated in various ways. Within the passage on pages 150 to 151, Lily is in a state of euphoria while surrounded by the bees. When the truth that she killed her mother starts to set in, it becomes evident that Lily transitions to a state of dysphoria. The structure of this passage demonstrates the dramatic change of feelings which highlights the lack of a motherly figure in Lily’s life. The author uses imagery and figurative language as well to define Lily’s existence within the real world versus her “dream state” by comparing Lily when she is with the bees to her actual existence. By using structure and imagery, the author illustrates …show more content…
This expedition of sort is demonstrated when Lily, having lost her mother as a young child, seeks a sense of comfort within the Boatwright sisters and the bees. Experiencing this sense of comfort and joy for the first time, given from the bees, Lily is met with a feeling of euphoria and excitement. However, upon realizing that the love she was feeling wasn’t truly from a mother, Lily described a dramatic change in feelings as, “Then, without all warning, all the immunity wore off, and I felt the hollow spooned-out space between my navel and breastbone begin to ache. The motherless place” (Kidd 150-151). Due to the dramatic contrast between the two emotions, it is evident that the theme, how the lack of a motherly figure leads to a missing part in a person’s life, is constructed using the structure. The sudden change from exhilaration to guilt and sorrow adds to the organization of the passage. By including such a dramatic shift between emotions, the author draws the reader’s attention to the contrasting feelings. Because the euphoria that Lily was experiencing was converted back to dysphoria, it is evident that the lack of having a mother in a child’s life cannot be fulfilled with another feeling. Thus, Lily is lead back to the start of 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.
In The Secret Life of Bees, written by Sue Monk Kidd, Lily lacks a mother figure in her life, which leads her on a compelling journey as she desperately searches for answers about her true mother. Her abusive father, T. Ray, causes Lily to run away along with Rosaleen, the housekeeper. They are led to the Boatwright household by one of the few things Lily still possesses from her mother, a Black Madonna Honey label. Lily is given the opportunity to create a mother-daughter type bond between her and the Boatwright sisters. August, one of the sisters, acts as the “queen bee” throughout the story. August teaches Lily that a mother does not have to be someone who you share blood with, but rather, a mother is
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.
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.
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. The meaning behind Sonsyrea Tate’s statement can be found deeply rooted within Sue Monk Kidd’s novel, The Secret Life of Bees.
According to pages 31 and 32, Lily said, “I watched their wings shining like bits of chrome in the dark and felt longing build in my chest. The way those bees flew, not even looking for a flower, just flying for the feel of the wind, split my heart down its seam.” She was the bee, flying to feel the wind, but full of emptiness because she couldn’t find her flower; her mother. Since the age of 4, Lily grew up without a mother. After the bees came the summer of 1964, she thought, “Looking back on it now, I wanted to say the bees were sent to me. I want to say they showed up like the angel Gabriel appearing to the Virgin Mary, setting events in motion I could never have guessed.”(32) The bees set the course of the novel, and finally, at the end of the novel, helped her find closure for her
Themes such as motherhood, racism, and the bees’ hardwork are included in The Secret Life of Bees,written by Susan Monk Kidd, in order to show and highlight the hard times that the each character faced. This novel highlights Lily’s path from a child to young adult. She now sees with more clarity in subjects of racism and her new family. Her path started innocent and uneducated and ended up being very whole and educated. In Lily’s growth throughout this novel, her trials and tribulations were shown. In The Secret Life of Bees, there are many words and phrases referenced and used that stay full of wisdom, courage, and female
With an increase in familiarity, as she progresses her outlook on life changes with her. By the closure of The Secret Life of Bees, Lily Owens experiences passion, rage, joy, and sorrow in larger quantities than most teens her age. Amidst every trial transpires an improved
A symbol in The Secret Life of Bees is the queen bee, one is found in all hives especially the Caribbean Pink Hive in Tiburon, South Carolina. The queen bee refers to a mated female that lives in the hive; she is usually a mother to most if not all the bees in the beehive. This symbol represents not just the bees hives that the Boatwrights work with, but also August Boatwright herself. The queen bee is a mother to all the bees in the hive just as August is for Lily, Rosaleen, June, and May, sometimes the mother you are born to is not truly meant to be your mother.
Asch,Timothy and Napoleon Chagnon. (1974). A Man Called "Bee": Studying the Yanomamo (Documentary). USA: Documentary Educational Resources.
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 predominant symbols found in The Secret Life of Bees contributed greatly to the structure of the literature. The development of the writing’s structure, shown through increased emotional appeal and conflict description, was directly related to the usage of symbolism within the story. The passage reads, “‘They had all these little fish they’d caught fastened onto a stringer. They held me down on the bank and hooked it around my neck, making it too small to pull over my head,’” (Kidd 229). One of the symbols present in the text is a necklace of fish that Lily was forced to wear as a child. The necklace summarized the intricate issues that Lily was dealing with in her present life. The issues were like a tight necklace that could not be
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
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.