The Secret Life of Bees and Motherhood
In The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, the main character, Lily, goes through a lot of changes in personality, beliefs, and morals. She overall grows a lot as a person throughout the novel. One of the key aspects of her growth is the evolution of her idea of motherhood and what it means. It shifts from her longing for her dead mother to finding guidance from her housekeeper, to finding a motherly figure who gives advice, to seeing that her dead mother was not as she seemed. Overall, Lily’s idea of motherhood evolves a lot, and her happiness and fulfillment depends on finding various mother figures throughout the novel to fill the hole that her dead mother left.
The first significant point in
…show more content…
Lily, seemingly instinctively, moves on to the next strong female figure in her life for guidance. This, of course, is August. August possesses the basic, key elements of motherhood that Rosaleen did, with being able to provide simple guidance, loving, caring for, and supporting Lily, and being an older figure in charge that Lily can relate to. However, there are visible differences between August and Rosaleen. Overall, August is much more like a mother to Lily than Rosaleen was. While Rosaleen does a fine job as a stand-in for Deborah in the basic Motherly aspects Lily’s life lacked that kept her afloat, August seemed to do an even better job than Lily had imagined her mother to. She acts as more of a role model, and gives Lily the advice and patient love that she’s craved since the death of her mother. She refuses to resent Lily despite her being white and despite the wishes of ‘The Daughters of Mary,’ and invites her with open arms into this religious group, and teaches her about Mary in a familiar way that will appeal to her. She knew from the start that Lily wanted her mother more than anything, and applies Mary to her life by comparing her to a queen bee and the mother figure that she so desired. “Egg laying is the main thing, Lily. She's the mother of every bee in the hive, and they all depend on her to keep it going. I