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Analysis Of Secret Life Of Bee's By Sue Monk Kidd

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In the book “Secret Life of Bee’s” by Sue Monk Kidd, it tells a story about a young girl named Lily and her childhood and what strong memories she has had that have impacted her life. In the beginning of the story it starts off by Lily introducing her father who she called T- Ray. She goes on and describes him as a cruel father who gives her no love or attention. Of course when you get no attention from your father you start to ask why you don’t get any from your mother, but Lily’s mom died December 3, 1954 when Lily was four years old. What had happened was that Lily’s mom ( Deborah ) had got herself into an argument with T- Ray and there was shoving and a gun involved. Lily only being four years old she had no idea of what she was doing she just wanted the fighting to stop but by doing so she accidentally gets a hold of the gun and pulls the trigger shooting her mom. Lily does know that she knew no better and that …show more content…

I get that he lost his wife and that there is no way he could ever be the same because that was an important person in his life and it made a big impact on him, but you need to be able to try and pull yourself together for your daughter and know that you are not the only one hurting from this loss. Early in chapter one Lily explains what the Martha White punishment is and it is when T-Ray would make her kneel down on grits. Rosaleen asked “ what happened “ and Lily responds that T-ray had made kneel down on the grits for about an hour or so and she claims that her knees were all swollen and bruised. Towards the end of the book T-Ray finds out where Lily was staying and shows up trying to take her back. In the book T-Ray thinks that Lily is Deborah for awhile and attacks her and screams and asks why She left him...It is not until Lily screams daddy and it kicks into T-Ray that it is Lily. T-Ray overcomes his pride and leaves Lily to the the Boatwright sisters knowing it is for the

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Sue Monk Kidd applies indirect characterization in her novel The Secret Life of Bees to Lily, describing her as a free-spirited person in order to develop Lily’s growing desire to leave T Ray. One example demonstrated in the novel is found where Lily and Rosaleen watch President Lyndon Johnson’s signing of the Civil Rights Act. Lily thinks about her opinion toward the wife of the President, ‘Lady Bird,’ while Johnson signs the act. “I did admire his wife, Lady Bird, though, who always looked like she wanted nothing more than to sprout wings and fly away” (20).

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334 Words | 2 Pages

I feel that Lily has a good mind set towards her goals because of the promises she makes towards herself to keep trying to achieve the goals that she wants to accomplish. By this, she continues wanting to fulfill her goals, for example, the bracelet she keeps asking for despite how many birthdays have passed concluding

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166 Words | 1 Pages

Although it is okay for a parent to shout at their child, it is not okay for a parent to shove their child. In doing this, T Ray could harm Lily who is still a small girl. Also, this displays the violent attitude of southern males towards people who they think are less dominant than them which plays an important role in the racism seen throughout the book. This indirect characterization

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204 Words | 1 Pages

In Kidd’s novel, The Secret Life of Bees, the author alludes to a bombing of a Baptist church in Birmingham to emphasize the terror that multiple characters, such as May, felt. In the novel, August clarifies the meaning of the wailing wall to Lily with one of the events that caused May’s sadness, “Birmingham, Sept 15, four little angels dead” (98). To further explain, the church in Birmingham had a large African-American congregation and served as a meeting place for civil rights leaders. Therefore, the Ku Klux Klan felt intimidated, so on September 15, they bombed the church and killed four little girls. So with the result of that, the Ku Klux Klan members hoped to scare African-Americans from trying to earn their civil rights.

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489 Words | 2 Pages

Lily’s insecurity is displayed through her actions in school when encountering the more popular girls, “I started picking scabs off my body and, when I didn’t have any, gnawing the flesh around my fingernails until I as a bleeding wreck” (Kidd 9). For instance, Lily’s act of shying away from others and picking at her scabs helped to emphasize her discomfort when people she considered her betters, in style at least, surrounding Lily and reminding her about her own less than satisfactory personal looks. Furthermore, her self-consciousness, along with her inborn daringness led her to run away from home, and take Rosaleen with her. In brief, the lack of parental guidance for Lily led her to be slightly unstable, and embarrassed about herself in general led her to run away from home, and the instability caused her to start stealing and lying.

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505 Words | 3 Pages

Lots of times we would consider T-ray the bad guy. It is very easy to point fingers at him and say he was the worst. But in these situations we never know the full story. The reason they got married is because she found out she was pregnant with T-ray’s daughter. These are very extreme situations that many times we do not want to be in.

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476 Words | 2 Pages

The author of the Secret Life of Bees chose to use Lily, the young white female protagonist on the precipice of adulthood, in order to better tell this story. Lily serves the role as narrator, and we see the story through her eyes – providing a unique insight that no other character in the story would give, being an outsider in Tiburon, as well as her journey of self-discovery that is at the core of this book. Several passages of the book would have been changed through a different perspective, such as when Lily overhears June and August arguing over her arrival. By changing the point of view away from Lily, you lose her confusion and “righteous indignation” over being turned away due to “being white” (Bees 87), something that she has never

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576 Words | 3 Pages

T-ray eventually realized that lily was better off with the boatwrights than him. In the novel T- ray then confessed that the day her mother died was actually the day she was coming back for lily. He had lied because she wasn’t coming back for him. I think at this point lily actually felt bad for him because he did love her but he just didn’t realize

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1610 Words | 7 Pages

He abandoned Lily’s mother after she found out she was pregnant with Lily. Lily is as inexperienced in life as a young child and Nelson tries to take advantage of her because of that. He and his sister are morally Corrupt. Nelson’s character seems to represent all men in the story. He sees his daughter as an object as he gambled her away to Jim Willis.

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392 Words | 2 Pages

This really starts the first conflict between Lily and T.ray. When T.ray mistreats Lily it physically and emotionally affects her. She gets so sick of it she runs away from T.ray and that's when she finds the house in Tiburon, South Carolina. The reason for this on Lily’s side is that she gets built up with so much aggression and depression so she leaves. Some of

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836 Words | 4 Pages

If it wasn’t for Lily's amazing support system, she may have still been in that dark place or even still with Ryle. It was because of her friends and family that she was able to "stay strong enough every second of the day" and not fall back into temptation (Hoover 112). Recovery and support are critical components in being able to leave difficult situations, and fortunately Lily had all of those things, allowing her to begin her new beginning and life with

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705 Words | 3 Pages

Being a single parent is never going to be easy, and it's going to be even harder knowing that your own child was the one that killed that special person, the one T.ray (Lily’s dad) “Claimed to love” Lily was just without boundaries because T ray always had rough punishments that worked her physically but not mentally that’s why Lily acted how she did. Even though lilly killed her own mom it wasn't a reason for T ray to treat lilly like that because lilly Is still his own blood, T ray didn’t treat deborah the way she deserved, T.Ray felt like he was looking at deborah when he’d seen lily.

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473 Words | 2 Pages

She finds out that once her mother once left her. Lily’s reaction is incomprehensible. Her delusions about her mother were crashed. Lily was transferring the guilt from herself to her mother. Children have a difficult time dealing with their parent’s mistakes.

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705 Words | 3 Pages

She finds herself in a small town called Tiburon in South Carolina, living with August Boatwright who was once her mother’s maid. After staying in Tiburon for a while, Lily calls her father, curious if he knows what her favourite colour is. They only spoke for a short period of

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261 Words | 2 Pages

Watching The Secret Life of Bees in the time period that it was filmed made me notice a lot of things I did not notice the first time I watched it. Along with it being the 1960's down south which was the most racist part of the country at the time. Rosaleen and Lily have a close relationship and they care for each other after Rosaleen was beaten up by the white men and taken into custody, Lily ran away from home to look for her. Lily helped Rosaleen escape from the hospital where she was being watched by police and went somewhere safe. They ended up at the Boatwright sisters, the sisters are very close and they even run their own business.

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