Examples Of Injustice In The Secret Life Of Bees

Prejudice is the bias you were born with based on no personal experiences or reason. In life you will encounter many instances where prejudice and injustice exist. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd had approached many themes throughout the novel, a large one being prejudice. Lily was raised in an area where racial prejudice was commonly practiced however, she tended to be very naive and not see it. It carries on throughout the novel eventually exposing her to her world, along with being a teaching point for her and the reader. Lily was born and raised in a small town in South Carolina where racism was practiced religiously. When Lily’s mom died her father had taken a worker from his peach farm to be a stand in mother. The worker

After many years of Rosaleen being a fill in mother for Lily, a law was passed allowing African Americans the right to register to vote. Rosaleen and Lily left their house and headed on their way to the church where Rosaleen was going to fill out a sheet and sign her name in perfect cursive. If Rosaleen didn’t perfectly cross a ‘t’ or dot an ‘i’ then she would immediately lose the privilege to be a registered voter. Lily didn’t see this as a huge deal because she didn’t quite understand the concept of prejudice and injustice. She didn’t see how wrong it was due to the fact that she grew up with it constantly surrounding her while at church, in public or home. As Rosaleen and Lily were walking, a group of men started harassing them.Rosaleen understood the prejudice and knew that the men had no plausible reason to be harassing her like they were, so she took it upon herself to lift “her snuff jug, which was filled with black spit, and calmly poured it across the top of the mens shoes”(Kidd 32). Rosaleen and Lily were sent to jail, where Rosaleen had been beat and tormented by the men who harassed her and it opened Lily’s eyes to the often ignored

The concept of exposure to the world is portrayed throughout the novel and it relates a lot to the world outside of the novel. Lily was raised in the south in in the 1950-60s where racism was commonly practiced. As she grew older more and more signs of racism would spark her curiosity and expose her to the wrongs of her town. It’s not an uncommon thing to experience, and it happens daily in the real world. Children grow up and experience things that they can view as positive or negative exposure. In the novel, the exposure Lily recieved was a racial prejudice and where that exists in modern times, there are many other prejudices I have been exposed to. For instance there is the LGBTQ+ community commonly being discriminated against for no other reason than the people they are capable of loving. The prejudice exists and there’s no good reason to hate those people much like the racial prejudice however, it is still in the world. People are raised in households where they’re told being attracted to any sex other than the opposite is wrong, so they have that preconceived notion with no evidence or plausible reason to back it up. The theme of prejudice will continue to be a relevant learning lesson in my life because of how often prejudices occur. It will remind me of how they exist, why they exist and possibly how to deal with them. It will help me see from a different view point and