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Motherly figures in the secret life of bees
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Lily ending up at her mother’s previous home was so unlikely, nearly impossible. In the real world, Lily would not have been accepted into their home so easily either. In conclusion, some parts of “The Secret Life of Bees” probably would not occur in the real
In The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd, Lily Owens is raised by her abusive father, T. Ray, because her mother died when she was young. Despite Lily’s negative upbringing, her nanny, Rosaleen Daise, and friend, August Boatwright, fill in for Lily’s mother’s absence and her father’s poor parental influence. T. Ray Owens raises Lily with discrimination and violence which encourages her to be the opposite. Lily’s father is very sexist and teaches her that girls are not as good as boys. T. Ray does not want Lily to read books because reading leads to college and he thinks that college is a waste of money for girls.
Sue Monk Kidd presents Lily’s insecure personality in her novel The Secret Life of Bees to convince the audience to see Lily in an innocent light. Kidd desires to portray Lily as innocent to justify her running away from T. Ray and her home. An excerpt from the onset of the book reveals Lily’s insecurity: “There was nothing worse than clumps of whispering girls who got quiet when I passed. I started picking scabs off my body and, when I didn’t have any, gnawing the flesh around my fingernails till I was a bleeding wreck”(9). As one analyzes this portion of the book, Lily convinces herself that she does not care what the others think about her.
“The Secret Life Of Bees” is a story of a fourteen-year-old girl raised in South Carolina that has lived most of her life with the guilt of killing her own mother. Raised by an abusive father,Lily runs off with her friend Rosaleen to Tiburon,California. Lily and Rosaleen stay with the Boatwright sisters who Lily believes knew her mother. Lily later finds out that her mother did live with the boatwright sisters and also finds out that her mother left her with her father,T-ray. Feeling betrayed,Lily takes a time to cope with the fact that her mother had flaws and made mistakes that Lily had to learn to forgive.
Bees are a mysterious species who have an incredible life that we know nothing about; in connection we live crazy, mysterious, lives with ups and downs; goods and bads. The secret life of bees by Sue Monk Kidd is an extraordinary story about a teenager Lily Owens, her abusive father, her mother, and numerous friends. Lily lost her mother at a young age, so she runs away; she ends up living with a loving family of women and finds mothers within them. She learns about friendships, overcoming, forgiveness, and love. In The secret Life of Bees the author shows theme through conflict and symbolism.
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.’
Lily Owens lives in Sylvan, South Carolina in the 1960s with her abusive father T Ray who never lets her forget the day when she was just four years old that she accidentally killed her mother while witnessing an argument between her parents. Through the process of forgiving herself for her mother’s death and forgiving her mother for abandoning her, Lily finds her courage, independence and self-worth. In the novel The Secret Life of Bees, Sue Monk Kidd demonstrates the hardships of forgiveness through the interactions
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.
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).
The Secret Lives of People The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd, is an interesting story that connects human lives to bees. The story takes place in 1964 during the Civil Rights Movement and fourteen year-old Lily Owens leaves her abusive father and her home in Sylvan, South Carolina to go to Tiburon with hopes to find information on her mother. Throughout the story, Lily struggles with many internal conflicts and also meets several mother figures along the way.
Violence in literature reflects reality while offering a productive and secure place to explore difficult questions. The Secret Life of Bees is an astonishing and endearing novel about prejudice, appreciation, and acceptance of a young girl named Lily and her nanny during the early 60's Civil Rights era. Each character in the novel reveals how the American south forcibly came out of the 'separated but equal' middle ages, the struggle surrounding slavery and the attempts at abolition. In the past, many people has challenged this book due to violence, profanity, and radical discrimination. Others have decided to qualify it because they believe that violence has played a great role in history and that it is essential to learn from it.
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
Her father left her constantly at young ages. He left his family completely till she was an adult when Rosa turned five. Rosa later moved to Abbeville to live with her father’s family when she was one year old. Her mother hated living there with his family. Later when
Forgiveness is defined as the intentional and voluntary process by which a victim undergoes a change in feelings and attitude regarding an offense. Additionally, the victims release themselves from any negative emotion such as vengefulness, with an increased ability to wish the offender away. Lily, the protagonist, in The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd, undergoes a change from feeling angry about the circumstances surrounding her mother’s death, to feeling forgiveness for all the hurt along way. In this bildungsroman, Lily narrates herself as a courageous and intelligent girl with many insecurities as well as prejudices. Furthermore, Lily has much animosity towards herself.
“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.
