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Gender Roles In The Secret Life Of Bees

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Lily Owens is a lonely little white girl who goes from not having a mother in her life to being surrounded by black mother figures galore. How she acquired these excess mothers is quite a tale. A tale that happens to contain some very interesting ideas. For a book set in a time like 1964 and a place such as South Carolina, The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd contains some very controversial and modern ideas about racism and gender roles of women. To start with Lily is raised by Roseleen, their black housekeeper. This isn’t all that uncommon for that time period, especially considering her MIA mother and her detached father. What is uncommon, however, is the fact that Lily runs away from her father and ends up at a house with three
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