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. August Boatwright is queen bee, without a doubt she is a powerful lady who with grace raises her sisters, and easily takes in Lily and Rosaleen even when others had doubts and questions about bringing them into the hive that is her Caribbean Pink house. A queen bee cares for all; cares for thousands of daughters and sons. Lily didn’t chose to …show more content…
Her coming into August’s life strengthened August’s maternal ways and made her into the queen bee of the hive. Lily is at peace with her life thanks to the queen bee who affects a range of people beyond just those associated with her. Lily near the end of book explains that “I know it is an absurd thought, but I believe in the goodness of imagination. Sometimes I imagine a package will come from him (T.Ray) at Christmastime- and in his card he will write, “Love, T.Ray.” He will used the word “love,” and the world will not stop spinning but go right on in its courses, like the river, like the bees, like everything.- and here I am in the pink house. I wake up to wonder everyday.”( Monk Kidd 300). This shows just how little love and affection Lily has experienced from her father and why didn’t just want but rather needed to find a mother, even if it wasn’t her real mother. Even though she found that love she had always want, it didn’t hurt any less to not have her
In her novel, she derives many of her characters from the types of bees that exist in a hive. Lily and Zach have characteristics 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 to themselves.
August Boatwright is a reliable friend, a caring woman, and a positive influence to Lily. “August lives up to her name as the ‘Mistress of Bees’ and the ‘portrayal into [Lily’s] mother’s life’ in the first moments she welcomes Lily and Rosaleen into her home and offers them refuge in the honey house.” (Herbert, 20). August becomes a mother to Lily by giving her a place to stay and someone to lean on. August recognizes that Lily is missing something from her life, but she waits for Lily to confess the truth to her. “There is a hole in Lily’s heart from not having parental love, especially mother love, but August teaches her that if one’s earthly mother is not dependable, there is always a heavenly mother.” (Themes, 237). August creates her own religion for her self and her friends based around a statue of black Mary that has been in the Boatwright’s’ family for years. The group of African American women call themselves The Daughters of Mary. This group of women also plays a role in Lily’s search for comfort in a mother figure. “August becomes not only a mother, but a sort of spiritual teacher for Lily. She tells Lily about the secret life of bees, which includes the secrets of human life as well.” (Themes, 237). August teaches Lily lessons about patience, love, and forgiveness. She teaches her how to forgive, not only others, but herself as well. August says, “Every little thing wants to be loved.” (Kidd, 92). Lily learns
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.
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 most outstanding thing that has caused Lily’s biases to change is the Boatwright sisters. August Boatwright was the person that took Lily by surprise, Lily was raised with this false philosophy that because she was white, she was superior, more intelligent than African Americans. “At my school they made fun of colored people’s lips and noses. I myself laughed at these jokes, hoping to fit in.
Another theme present in the film is the importance of female community. Throughout the movie, the audience continually sees women together—for healing, for strength, and to learn to forgive and love. Each of the women is fierce and strong in their own way. Despite the fact that May Boatwright committed suicide, we still saw courageousness within her. Community is essential to women; it allows us the freedom to be who we truly are and to feel loved and protected. It should also be noted that beehives cared for by August, Lily, and Zach serve as a parallel to the community established by August. Beehives are female-dominated structures in which a queen bee is mother t...
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
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
Honey: When Lily and Rosaleen arrive in Tiburon, they have a picture of a Black Madonna and they see the same exact picture on a honey jar in a downtown store. This is how they find out that the Boatwright sisters are beekeepers. After arriving at the farmhouse, they help the sisters take care of the bees and fill jars with honey.
Symbolism is a recurring theme in this novel, the river and fish symbols both contribute to the overall growth to the protagonist, Lily, and to the storyline as a whole. “The river has done its best, I was sure, to give her a peaceful ride out of this life. You can die in a river, but maybe you could be reborn in it too” (Kidd 229). The river as a symbol represents life and death, Lily mentions how it brought May’s death but also brings life too, for example, a baptism is sometimes done in river with symbolizes rebirth. This influential symbol contributes to the organization of the storyline by partly helping Lily come to terms with May’s death, in turn, keeping Lily content and the story continuing. “They held me down on the bank and hooked
As the epigraph for chapter 14 states, “A queenless colony is a pitiful and melancholy community; there may be a mournful wail or lament from within… Without intervention, the colony will die. But introduce a new queen and the most extravagant changes take place” (277) The initial changes with the introduction the new queen seem insignificant, but they are anything but. It begins with Lily taking over May’s old room. It is extremely symbolic of her fulfilling the role left empty in the house. Then, August stood up to T. Ray for Lily to ensure that she would stay in the house with her, effectively keeping her safe, and under her watchful eye, just as she had with May. Many other changes, large and small occur as Lily transfers to her new role, but each is significant to the bee symbolism.
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
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 bees symbolize Lily’s unspoken guides throughout the novel. Kidd’s constant reference to the bees indicate that Lily eventually understands the importance of female power in the bee community, which she connects to her own life. When Lily initially sees the bees in her room, Rosaleen warns her that they can sting her if she tries to catch them, but Lily ignores her and continues to trap them, thus asserting her determination. Later, the bees reveal the message to Lily that she should leave her father. Kidd notes that one bee landed on Lily’s state map that she kept tacked on the wall, foreshadowing Lily and Rosaleen’s journey to Tiburon (10). The bees also symbolize the secret life that Lily lives as she hides her secret of running away from home. The hive represents society while the bees represent all of the humans inside. August tells Lily about the hives and announces, “Most people don’t have any idea about all the complicated life going on inside a hive. Bees have a secret life we don’t know anything about” (Kidd 148). The beehive cannot sur...
Ken Kesey’s novel “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” is a story about a band of patients in a mental ward who struggle to find their identity and get away from the wretched Nurse. As audiences read about the tale, many common events and items seen throughout the story actually represent symbols for the bigger themes of the story. Symbols like the fishing trip, Nurse, and electroshock therapy all emphasize the bigger themes of the story.