The secret life of bees is a coming of age story that has lots of character growth and conflicts within it. The story has many interesting parts, and shows racism through ways many people never knew about. The book has lots of other pieces to it as well that make it come together nicely. The story follows a young girl named Lily Owens who kills her mother (named Deborah Owens) when she was little. She lives with her father and a black headstrong women named Roseleen. Her father, named T-Ray, is a man who takes out his anger on Lily for her mothers death and punishes her as much as he can. This is unfair to Lily and known as a conflict called man vs man. She is walking with Roseleen one day when a group of white men are making racist and mean comments to reseleen and she dumps her snuff contents on them. They beat her and she gets arrested. This is one part of racial discrimination shown through the book. It also shows the conflict known as man vs man. …show more content…
She makes it out of the hospital with Roseleen and to a nearby road. They discuss options and decide to run to a town close to then known as Tiburon. They come across a shop and see little jars of honey. Lily and Rosaleen go to the house where it is being made and meet the people there. The people who sell the honey are known as the Sisters of Mary and all show different traits that make them unique. Lily has many jobs and struggles while she was there. She works with the bees and eventually gets stung. She doesn’t know why she was stung because she was sending so much love. One of the Sisters of Mary (named August) tells her it isn’t her fault. This is an example of man vs