The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd is a story about racial struggle between black and white in 1964, which is in the middle of the civil right movement in South Carolina. The narrator and protagonist of the story named Lily raised by T. Ray, her father, who has bias towards black people at all time. Due to the fact that T. Ray often says something regards to racial discrimination, Lily starts to thinks that whites are superior than the others unconsciously. Also Lily was not aware that she is being an unconscious racism because of T. Ray until she starts to live with Boatwright sisters who are black. T. Ray often takes his anger out on Lily since Deborah left the house and it trigged abuses and ignores Lily. Moreover, though T. Ray treats Lily so badly, he seems like and acts like he doesn’t care. In other words, it was impossible to feel any humanity in T. Ray. One of the most important and influential characters named T. Ray is prejudiced, violent and cruel person. …show more content…
Ray also has strong prejudice. In the house, T. Ray often mentions Lily “colored women [are not] smart” (78). As a result it affects Lily’s sensibility, because she says, “I thought they could be smart, but not as smart as me, me being white” (78). Also T. Ray often calls black people ‘nigger’ which we should never. When Lily and Rosaleen; her housekeeper went to the town, they got into the trouble and T. Ray picked Lily up and blames her. “…Couldn’t pick somebody normal? He’s the meanest nigger-hater in Sylvan…” (38). Additionally, when T. Ray comes to try to take her back in Sylvan, he says, “So you’ve been here the whole time, staying with colored women Jesus Christ” (291), like it is a bad thing to stay with them, because it doesn’t necessary to mention people’s race at that circumstance. Even though Lily was trying not to influence by T. Ray, she has some racism inside of her
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
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
Lily was raised in an extremely racist environment with T. Ray in Sylvan. Her mother figure and her best friend was harassed just is walking down the street. Even the church folks who claim to love but I guess African-Americans didn’t count. Also she had to break Rosaleen, the woman who played the mother figure in her life, out of jail.
Ray is displayed as a protective character, even though he does not play the father role very well, and prohibits Lily from doing activities that are normal for a girl her age, becoming furious whenever his rules are broken. He also assumes that he knows what is going on in Lily’s life and his assumptions are almost always (if not always) unfavorable. “‘Who were you out here with?’ [T. Ray] shouted, aiming the light on my half-buttoned top. … ‘Please, T. Ray, no one was here but me.’ … ‘I expect this out of boys, Lily- you can’t blame them- but I expect more out of you. You act no better than a slut.’” (Kidd 25) T. Ray demonstrates outrage and indignation here when his rules are broken, even though his assumption is misguided. T. Ray’s protective personality is even demonstrated for Deborah, his ex-wife, when he finds Lily in Tiburon, living with the Boatwright sisters. “‘Deborah,’ [Lily] heard [T. Ray] mumble. ‘You’re not leaving me again.’ … ‘T. Ray,’ I said. ‘It’s me- Lily.’ He didn’t hear me. He had a fistful of my hair and wouldn’t let go. ‘Deborah,’ he said. … He seemed crazy with anguish, reliving a pain he’d kept locked up all this time, and now that it was loose, it had overwhelmed him.” (Kidd 295) This quote shows how T. Ray is selfish and possessive of his family, refusing to let Lily leave him, even for the better. On another occasion, T. Ray forbids Lily from doing a pretty normal activity- which is reading books. “T. Ray refused to let [Lily] bring books
“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 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.
Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.” Forgiveness is a necessary attribute that everyone must acquire as they grow and mature. Lily Owens, the protagonist in The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, exemplifies the need to forgive in order to find inner peace. Lily suffers many hardships and difficulties as she ages due to the faults and flaws of the people who surround her. Throughout the novel, Lily must learn how to forgive, accept, and love herself and
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
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 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.
Racism has been around since humans first walked this planet, it would seem that over the thousands of years humans have had to develop morals and socially acceptable behaviors that something as shallow as racism would be entirely abolished but that is not the case. In the novel The Secret Life of Bees, written by author Sue Monk Kidd, the idea of racism is a constant struggle for fourteen year old Lily Owens as she embarks on a journey to find who she really is. 1964 is a difficult time for the Civil Rights movement. The conflicting tug of war between the political strides for the cause and the tension growing in prejudice southerners. The Civil Rights act of 1964 had just been signed into law by president John F. Kennedy, making sure