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Lily Owens Character Analysis Essay

596 Words3 Pages

The Character of Lily Melissa Owens in Sue Monk Kidd's
The Secret Life of Bees

The novel The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd tells a story about a 14-year old Lily Melissa Owens. Lily is a white girl growing up in 1964 South Carolina in the midst of a period of segregation. When first introduced into the novel, the reader learns all of the troubles of Lily's life - being abused and mistreated by her father, being treated as if she wasn't a little girl, and being left with the burden of killing her mother. After running away from her father with Rosaleen, her black nanny, Lily comes to realize qualities about herself she had never noticed. Lily's resourcefulness, ability to overcome prejudice, and capacity to forgive others are shown throughout the novel. …show more content…

At the beginning of the novel, Lily is a very flat character - we don't get to see the full potential Lily has to offer. A shift in the story is shown whenever Lily accompanies Rosaleen to sign up to vote. Thus far, we don't get to see Lily shine as a true round character. After Rosaleen gets thrown into jail we see Lily breakaway from her usual self and starts to really become resourceful. She schemes about how to break Rosaleen out; she plans their route away from Sylvan in search of Black Mary, and her mother. Lily's ability to think on her feet and consider the tasks ahead of her help Lily to grow as a

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Examples Of Juxtaposition In The Secret Life Of Bees

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Lily's creativity, activated by religious observance, allows her to be more creative. Later on in the passage, when Lily describes her outward expression, she notes that “[She] wanted to cry, but in the next instant, [she] wanted to laugh” (Kidd 71). Through the use of juxtaposition, Kidd carries out an image of Lily about to sob until she suddenly starts chuckling. By using the diction of “cry” and “laugh,” two words that completely differ in emotion, Kidd shows that the religious statue made her recall events of her past, truly making her analyze the type of person she was. Religion allowed her to have the trait of being self-aware allowing her to forgive herself for her past and move on because she knew that the religious statue could see good in her.

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Symbols In The Secret Life Of Bees

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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.

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The Secret Life Of Bees Metaphors Analysis

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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.’

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Character Analysis: Secret Life Of Bees

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Lily is lost in her head, she doesn't know how to stick up for herself. She takes in all the abuse, both mentally and physically from T.Ray and she blames everything on herself. Throughout the novel Lily gains her confidence, bravery and strength by standing up to the challenges she faces throughout experiencing new cultures and way of knowledge. As the Novel went on Lily started to feel a connection with her mother.

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The Secret Life Of Bees By Sue Monk Kidd

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Lily’s mother is the cause of much of her grief, through her journey she imagines her mother in a way that does not accurately depict who her mother truly was. When she finds out what her mother actually was she, “I stood

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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.

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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.

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The Secret Life Of Bees Quote Analysis

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Continuing, another theme that led us through Lily’s adventure of growing up was her discovering how important storytelling was. She was going through gruesome horrid things, and when she read things like Shakespeare she realized how important it was because it helped her escape to a fantasy world for a little bit of time. Lastly, Lily learns the power of the female community. Lily grew up without a mother, so for a large chunk of her life she didn’t know the real power the female community held.

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The qualities that make her a relatable character to readers are her journey of self discovery and her yearning for acceptance from everyone around her. Lily’s culture and family values can contribute to readers with diverse backgrounds who struggle with self discovery and acceptance. The main conflict in the story is self discovery. This type of conflict would be character vs. society. I say this because during the time period the book takes place in, it was a conservative time in American society where being of different race and being a part of the LGTBQ+ community was dangerous.

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Interracial Relationships In The Secret Life Of Bees

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A New Family: Interracial Relationships and Religion in The Secret Life of Bees In such a diverse world where different races come together and interact, the early 1960s reveal society’s surprised reaction to these relationships. Interracial relationships are strongly frowned upon during this time, almost as if they are illegal. Fortunately, over time, people begin to accept those with different backgrounds and can easily communicate with each other. Hardships are still present today, but society in moving in a better direction.

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The Secret Life Of Bees Reflection Essay

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“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.

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