Character Analysis Of Lily In The Secret Life Of Bees
Lily's creativity, activated by religious observance, allows her to be more creative. Later on in the passage, when Lily describes her outward expression, she notes that “[She] wanted to cry, but in the next instant, [she] wanted to laugh” (Kidd 71). Through the use of juxtaposition, Kidd carries out an image of Lily about to sob until she suddenly starts chuckling. By using the diction of “cry” and “laugh,” two words that completely differ in emotion, Kidd shows that the religious statue made her recall events of her past, truly making her analyze the type of person she was. Religion allowed her to have the trait of being self-aware allowing her to forgive herself for her past and move on because she knew that the religious statue could see good in her.
In the excerpt from the opening of The Beet Queen , Louise Endrich, portays Karl and Mary as an addition and subtraction to the town of Argus. Louise Endrich shows the role the environment plays which has an impact on how the two children are viewed through literary devices such as, imagery, her point of view, and selection of detail. Every day people are affected by the environment in which they are in. Everyone is affected differently by their surroundings just how Karl and Mary were affected differently by arriving at Argus. How people react to the situations they are put in exhibits their qualities and ability to handle tough situations.
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).
In The Secret Life of Bees, Sue Monk Kidd indirectly characterizes Lily as ambitious in order to contrast with the traditional ‘Southern Belle’ image. The general opinion in Lily’s hometown is that girls should grow up to be either beauticians or school teachers, instead of pursuing challenging careers. Initially, Lily herself believes she is bound only for beauty college until one of her teachers realizes Lily’s potential and tells her that going to beauty college would be a waste for such intelligence. This comment from her teacher changes Lily’s whole perspective on her future and causes her to profess that, “I can’t tell you how much I’d hated that question [about careers], but suddenly I was going around volunteering to people, people
“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.
Sue Monk Kidd’s novel, The Secret Life of Bees, Kidd indirectly characterizes, Lily as a follower, because she longing desire to fit in with the other girls at her school. Lily, the protagonist of the story, does not fit in with her classmates at Sylvan Junior High. Lily went to charm school at the Women’s Club to try and learn how to be a girl. One of the other ways Lily tried to fit in was when she asked her father, T. Ray, for a silver charm bracelet, just like the ones every girl at school had. “I wanted to tell T. Ray that any girl would love a silver charm bracelet, that in fact last year I’d been the only girl at Sylvan Junior High without one, that whe whole point of lunchtime was to stand in the cafeteria line jangling your
Another concept Sue Monk Kidd presents to the reader is the continual emotional devastation Lily experiences because of her mother’s death and father’s opposition. To start off with, throughout the novel is apparent Lily has never found solace with her mother’s departure. However, Lily has a vague memory of a conflict that supposedly resulted in her mother’s death when Lily was only a toddler. Yet, her inability to understand what is the truth and her internal quest to discover what exactly happened that day continually progresses Lily’s characterization and self-discovery. As seen by her internal conflict, while at her house in Sylvan, “This is what I know about myself.
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.
In the story, Kidd’s use of characterization successfully reveals the theme that people's lives are more complex than they appear. Kidd demonstrates this theme using the characterization of Lily, T. Ray, May, and Deborah. One character that Sue Monk Kidd uses to portray the theme, is the main character Lily. In the beginning of the story, the author shows that Lily can be both mature and immature at times. An example of her maturity in the text is when she says, “People who think dying is the worst thing don’t know a thing about life” (Kidd 2).
In the novel, The Secret Life of Bees, I related to the character Lily Owens right at chapter one. In the first chapter of this novel, Lily was describing herself as a visual for readers. While Lily was briefly explaining her physical appearance, the line, “…Even the boys who wore their hair in ducktails dripping with Vitalis and carried combs in their shirt pockets didn’t seem to attracted to me, and they were considered hard up” (Monk Kidd 9), relates to many young girls. I, as a teenager, criticize myself very harshly just because a boy may not like me and that is what Lily is doing in this passage. I feel that Lily feeling this type of way and expressing it helped me to connect to her right from the beginning and put myself into her shoes
In the Bildungsroman, The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd, Lily, the young motherless protagonist, exists in a life which lacks love and care, but with an act of rebellion, alters the entire course of her life. After enduring cruel punishments from a sadist father, Lily accepts this as the way of life she must live. However, after a crucial moment, Lily begins to consider the idea of freedom from her oppressive life; she realizes this when she and Rosaleen, her substitute mother, come under arrest for disrupting the public and Terrence, her father, would only take Lily out of jail. This is a pivotal moment as Lily a heated conversation with her father and exclaims, “You don’t scare me”(Kidd 38). Her brash action to rebel against her father
In the novel Secret Life of Bees and today prejudice is shown for people’s sexual preference, age but especially race. Since Lily was little she has been told by T. Ray that white people are better and smarter than black people. In the story Lily tells the reader what T-Ray had told her,“T. Ray did not think colored women were smart.” (Kidd 78) “Staying in a colored house with colored women, eating off their dishes, lying on their sheets-it was not something I was against, but I was brand new to it, and my skin never felt so white to me.”
Scout and Lily Compare and Contrast Essay Both Scout, from To KIll a Mockingbird and Lily, from The Secret Life of Bees uphold their beliefs regarding race and personal prejudices in their own pieces of literature. Although these stereotypes belong to two different characters, some similarities can be found between them as well. Lily and Scout have had different ranges of exposure to African Americans, however they both eventually developed mature thoughts involving race and represented strong female characters in the midst of male-dominated societies. Scout and Lily were both constantly considering and believing what they heard regarding African Americans from their guardians and classmates at the beginning of each novel.
In the novel “Secret life of bees” the author Kidd Monk Sue made me admire Zach Taylor. He works at the honey farm and becomes a friend of Lily’s. He seems to be like the average teenager in during that time erra. Now he is a very “happy go lucky” teenager, but when something happens to him it changes him. After this event he is a whole new person.
“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.
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