Starting the age of 5, we come to school everyday to learn something and expand our horizons. We start with the basics, such as the ABC’s and our 123’s, until we work our way up to a more in depth discussion of each subject, such as English II. This semester, I have learned topics in the field of English II,such as grasping the underlying meaning a book presents, the 12 archetypes, even the subject of debate. The semester began with the discussion of “The Secret Life of Bees” by Sue Monk Kidd. The first day of class we needed to have the book annotated and ready for discussion. Through the annotations, I was able to grasp the hidden meaning and values of the book. I remember when I finally came to the realization of the underlying meaning
Sue Monk Kidd indirectly characterizes Rosaleen through speech , in The Secret Life of Bees, as brave in order to reveal that she cares about Lily enough to stand up to T Ray and be like a mother figure to Lily. An example of this is when Rosaleen defends Lily and her new baby chick, “ she said and looked him up one side and down the other ‘You ain’t touching that chick.’ ” (Kidd 11).In this scene, T Ray was threatening to kill Lily’s baby chick that she had recently acquired. Since Lily was only 8 years old she could not defend herself against her father, so Rosaleen is brave and steps in and acts as her mother in protecting her, and what she cares about, from her ill-tempered father. The author does this in order to explain to the reader
Life is filled with challenges and conflict. However only a few can overcome and escape the confinements of their problems, others remain left behind to struggle. Sue Monk Kidd displays this with the imprisonment that Lily deals with throughout the book. While Lily does finds liberation at the end, she first had to break free from the imprisonments of her secrets, T-Ray, and the torment from killing her mother.
When the challenges that people face become increasingly difficult, people tend to back down from the challenges that they encountered. However, there are some people who will rise to the occasion and do what is needed to be done to overcome those obstacles. Throughout the reading of La Línea, Maus, and The Secret Life of Bees, the same overlapping theme that only a few stand-up and overcome their problems remains constant. The book La Línea was the book with the largest variety of challenges ranging from strenuous physical activity to exhausting mental strain. Throughout the book it talks about how some people don’t try to leave, like Miguel's friend Chuy, “we all knew Chuy wasn't going anywhere”(Jaramillo 8).
In the article, Birds and Bees, No Let’s Talk about Dollars and Cents, by Ben Stein, he successfully makes his point to inform his son that he needs self discipline to create human and financial capital to have a more stable life. The young boy has been living large his whole life and his father wants to help him keep it going by having self-discipline to make smart decisions so he doesn’t live in fear and insecurity. Ben Stein uses many anecdotes to get the point across to his son and the readers of the New York Times that people are capable of coming from nothing and turning into something with the willpower to make smart choices. With the use of anecdotes and repetition all throughout the letter, it allows Stein to utilize logos, pathos,
Many people think bees live a vague life compared to humans. However, Albert Einstein once said “If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man.” This quote illustrates how bees and humans live a similar life, each having their own set of tasks to accomplish. In the novel The Secret Life of Bees, Sue Monk Kidd uses bees as a metaphor for Lily’s life.
By: Sue Monk Brianna Smith In the Secret Life of Bees by: Sue Monk, the main character, Lilly is a fourteen year old girl who lives with her father and their housekeeper, Rosaleen. Lilly’s mother died when she was younger, and she didn’t remember much about her. There are many sections in the book where Lilly felt unhappy because she didn’t have a mother like other girls her age. Lilly stated, “The gun shining like a toy in her hand, how he snatched it away and waved it around.
“Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance” -Samuel Johnson. This quote encompasses one of the underlying and pivotal concepts that I have learned this semester. This is the idea of perseverance. Perseverance has various forms and it shows up in every single book we have read this semester. I think that this quality is crucial to progress in both physical and spiritual life.
One of the themes presented by Sue Monk Kidd in, “The Secret Life of Bees” is pushing boundaries. In the book, Lily runs away from her abusive father and stays at a beekeepers house where she would be safe. This beekeepers house is a black family and while she stayed there and everyone was constantly pushing boundaries. The story relates to the article written by Nadra Kareem Nittle which was called, “How the Freedom Riders Movement Began”. This article was about a group of people called freedom riders traveling together to end the Jim Crow laws or other known as, racist laws.
“A wonderful novel about mothers and daughters and the transcendent power of love” (Connie May Fowler). This quote reflects the novel, The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd because the protagonist in the story, Lily Owens, her mother have died when she was four years old and she didn’t feel loved by her abusive father, T. Ray Owens, until she met the Boatwrights family with the housekeeper, Rosaleen, and stayed with them. The Boatwrights family are the three black sisters who are August, May, and June. This novel took place in Sylvan and Tiburon, South Carolina, where Lily grew up and where she found the answer to her questions.
Another prevalent literary device in the novel is Kidd’s use of metaphors. As the novel is titled The Secret Life of Bees, unsurprisingly enough, the main metaphor of the novel are bees and their hive. The fact that there is a whole dynamic of jobs and responsibilities that go into running a successful hive is unknown to a lot of people compares to Lily’s life with the Boatwright sisters, since Lily and Rosaleen arrive at the Boatwright sister’s house unknown and unexpected. Lily describes this time as her “secret life,” shown by the quote: “‘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.’
In Sue Monk Kidd’s novel, The Secret Life of Bees, Kidd incorporates the literary technique of allusion to assist the reader in delving into Lily’s thought process. Furthermore, to incorporate allusion, Kidd compares the message Lily interpreted from the arrival of the bees in her room to the plagues God sent to the pharaoh Ramesses. Lily ponders: Back in my room on the peach farm, when the bees had first come out at night, I had imagined they were sent as a special plague for T. Ray. God saying, Let my daughter go, and maybe that’s exactly what they’d been, a plague that released me (151).
Throughout The Secret Life of Bees bees play a recurring role in the novel, repeatably being mentioned during the novel in epigrams before the start of each chapter and within the story itself. Unfortunately, on certain occasions the reason why bees are included in a certain part of the story can be unclear and confusing to readers, causing them to occasionally misinterpret the importance of bees throughout the novel. Regardless, the bees throughout play a very important role in understanding many of the themes and symbolism that Kidd included within the novel. In The Secret Life of Bees Kidd symbolizes Lily’s experiences and situations through the bees frequently present in the novel to show that seemingly different things can function in the same way.
Chapter eight’s epigraph in The Secret Life of Bees explains how isolation can tear a family apart whether it be bees or humans. To begin, the main representatives from the epigraph would be August, June, and May characterizing the honeybee sisters, and May portraying the honeybee left in the dark, or isolated from the truth. When August and June decided to not tell May of the incidents going on, for her well being, the sisters did not see it as a problem. in their minds, as long as May didn 't find out, she would be fine, but when she did it was worse than ever could be imagined. Instead of expressing her emotion by sobbing, singing, rocking, and tugging she sat silently and limply, her eyes glazed over as if nothing made it through
Sue Monk Kidd once said, "In a way, humans are not made of skin and bones as such, as we're made of stories" ("Sue Monk Kidd Quotes"). Through her novels, Sue Monk Kidd tells people's stories. She writes realistic accounts of every day people and the hardships they encounter. Of course, many people have stories that include mature content, but the purpose of telling them is all the same; she wants to make others aware of issues that are present in today's society. The Secret Life of Bees is the story of a girl who runs away from her life along with her black "stand-in mother".
In today’s society, people often find difficulty setting and achieving goals due to setbacks and hardships. However, in Akeelah and the Bee, a young girl works toward her goal of winning the national spelling bee. Her persistence and heartwarming story entertain the audience while providing an inspiration for achieving goals.