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).
Chapter eight’s epigraph in The Secret Life of Bees explains how isolation can tear a family apart whether it be bees or humans. To begin, the main representatives from the epigraph would be August, June, and May characterizing the honeybee sisters, and May portraying the honeybee left in the dark, or isolated from the truth. When August and June decided to not tell May of the incidents going on, for her well being, the sisters did not see it as a problem. in their minds, as long as May didn 't find out, she would be fine, but when she did it was worse than ever could be imagined. Instead of expressing her emotion by sobbing, singing, rocking, and tugging she sat silently and limply, her eyes glazed over as if nothing made it through
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.’
A young girl, who killed her mother and wants to know more about her, changes the 14 year old’s life for a long period of time. In the novel, Lily has lived with some heavy burdens on her shoulders. She has to overcome these things and tell the truth even if she doesn’t want to. In Sue Monk Kidd’s novel, “The Secret Life of Bees,” Lily has a coming of age moment when she tells August the truth about everything. She decides to tell August the truth as shown through these things: telling her she is unlovable, how she was angry with what she heard, getting the items she has had.
Permanence, perseverance and persistence in spite of all obstacles, discouragements, and impossibilities: It is this, that in all things distinguishes the strong soul from the weak. ”-Thomas Carlyle. In the novel Secret Life of Bees, Lily is a harmless, kind hearted girl who has experienced much in the short life she has lived. The last time Lily has felt kindness, gentleness, and love was when her mother was alive. “People who think dying is the worst thing don’t know a thing about life (2).”
“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.
“The queen, for her part, is the unifying force of the community; if she is removed from the hive, the workers very quickly sense her absence. After a few hours, or even less, they show unmistakable signs of queenlessness.” Page 1 The metaphor is meant to compare the loss of a queen bee to the loss of Lily’s mother. Lily’s family was bound together by her mother, as the hive is with their queen bee.
A Character profile of Honey West in "Honey West: This Girl For Hire" by G.G. Fickling Personality: Honey West’s personality is a highly socially interactive woman that has exploits her sexual prowess as a means of gathering information from her clients and potential suspects. More so, West is an intelligent woman that is capable of solving problems with logic and reasoning. These personality factors define the sexual active and highly motivated social acumen that West utilizes as a private investigator working out of Hollywood. Honey West has many of the traits of a “protector”, since she becomes a private investigator to seek revenge for the death of her father. West as a strong intuition about people, which allows her to manipulate them through sexuality, charisma, and guile when investigating cases for her clients.
The figurative language in the novel, The Secret Life Of Bees, defines the father, T. Ray, as controlling, because of his actions and emotions towards Lily. T. Ray is Lily’s father who punishes his child by making her kneel on Martha Whites, which are coarsely ground up corn flakes that feel like powdered glass, and dig into Lily’s knees as she kneels on them. After the hour that Lily kneels there, as Rosaleen takes a look at her knees and on page twenty six he marches in “despising” and “full of anger.” Lily thought that he could have still loved her after her mother’s death, but now he treats her as though he can control her into his will and doesn’t treat her as a father should. The words that are used to describe his emotions show just
Novella Carpenter, author of Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer, is an activist who is a big part of the food movement and who has studied under Michael Pollen, author of Omnivores Dilemma. Originally from Seattle, she relocated to Oakland not only for its better climate for farming, but what she wanted most was to have the best of both worlds, to be able to go to bars and shows while being one with nature without feeling isolated. At the beginning she was a squatter, receiving permission from the landowner to start a local garden in the middle of the ‘ghettos’ where crime rates and poverty were a major issue. Carpenter saw an amazing opportunity to use the empty parking lot to produce something for the community and by starting with
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.
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.
The novel’s protagonist, Janie Crawford, a woman who dreamt of love, was on a journey to establish her voice and shape her own identity. She lived with Nanny, her grandmother, in a community inhabited by black and white people. This community only served as an antagonist to Janie, because she did not fit into the society in any respect. Race played a large factor in Janie being an outcast, because she was black, but had lighter skin than all other black people due to having a Caucasian ancestry.
The setting of a story can vastly affect a story. A horror story is a lot different if it’s set on a park instead of a old haunted house. The Secret life of Bees is set in South Carolina during 1964.In 1964 the civil rights movemant was slowly winding down as African Americans got rights but the tensions where still there. In The Secret Life of Bees the setting has a huge effect on the plot because Zach gets captured because he is with lily, May commits suicide becuase he is always so sad from all the african americans geting killed and hurt, and lily and rosaline run away because they don 't want to get hurt.
“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.
