ipl-logo

Sue Monk Kidd

842 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: How family influences behavior

Life is filled with challenges and conflict. However only a few can overcome and escape the confinements of their problems, others remain left behind to struggle. Sue Monk Kidd displays this with the imprisonment that Lily deals with throughout the book. While Lily does finds liberation at the end, she first has to break free from the imprisonments of her lies, T-Ray, and her torment from her mother. Throughout the book, one of the major conflicts that Lily has to face is her secrets. With her life controlled through them, her secrets and lies refrain her from living fulfillingly and puts a mental strain on her. It all started with a simple lie to a store clerk at Tiburon, “I’m visiting my grandmother” (62). Soon that simple lie escalated …show more content…

But with her mother dead and her father bitter, those feelings are foreign to Lily. Especially since she is trapped, tormenting herself over the fact that she was the one to shoot her mother. Despite it being a terrible accident. Sue Monk Kidd expresses to the readers how much death can trap someone in their own mind through Lily. You can see the full extent of her suffering when she sobbed the truth to August “It was my fault she died. I killed her” (241) and when she torments herself with thinking that she is unlovable. Lily even describes that her words had “broke open her heart” (242). This shows how captive Lily is over her mother because, despite loving her life at the Boatwright’s house, she can still move past the death. Lily’s suffering increase after finding out that her mother had willingly left her behind with T-Ray and begins to question why? It even makes her thoughts sink deeper into depression,“it was easy for her to leave me, because she never wanted me in the first place” (252). Nevertheless, Lily was able to prevail her mental incarceration and come to terms with her mother’s death. With accepting who her mother was and what had happened, Lily was able to move forward with her life at the Boatwright’s house.
Throughout The Secret Life Of Bees, Lily struggles to find how to live life freely, like many people do. She is constantly restrained by her problems. The lies and secrets that she

Show More
Related
606 Words | 3 Pages

She is now 15 and ½ years old. Her mother reports she would also like to begin Lily on ‘the pill’, because “I don’t want her getting pregnant young like I did”. Lily denies any concerning symptoms and she denies interest in contraception. Lily will be a sophomore. She expresses angst at starting a new school and leaving her friends for the recent move.

Read More
511 Words | 3 Pages

“The Secret Life Of Bees” is a story of a fourteen-year-old girl raised in South Carolina that has lived most of her life with the guilt of killing her own mother. Raised by an abusive father,Lily runs off with her friend Rosaleen to Tiburon,California. Lily and Rosaleen stay with the Boatwright sisters who Lily believes knew her mother. Lily later finds out that her mother did live with the boatwright sisters and also finds out that her mother left her with her father,T-ray. Feeling betrayed,Lily takes a time to cope with the fact that her mother had flaws and made mistakes that Lily had to learn to forgive.

Read More
796 Words | 4 Pages

Lily’s mother was stripped of her limits by Lily’s father and her sense of independence was gone. As Lily’s mother said, the more she accepted her husband's apologies, the more her tolerance for the abuse went up, which ultimately resulted in Lily’s mother being somewhat of a villain while her father was alive. Lastly, Lily’s dad plays the role of an antagonist perfectly as he shows the reader what a negative force looks like. Lily continuously shows the reader of the book the violent temper and the mental and physical abuse that they had to encounter with Lily's father.

Read More
2028 Words | 9 Pages

For most of Lily’s life, she has been haunted by the death of her mother, Deborah Fontanel, who died when Lily was four. Throughout the book, we get to see Lily’s the journey Lily took to Tiburon, South Carolina, is search of information about her mother.

Read More
592 Words | 3 Pages

Lily is the main character, and narrator of her story, through her interactions she gains an understanding

Read More
870 Words | 4 Pages

She left me.” (Kidd 262) When Lily figures out that it is true her mom left her, she immediately thinks of the worst. These two quotes are just some things she said to some people. She thinks that since her mom didn’t take her with her, that means she didn’t want her. She told people over and over again the same things, but everyone knew that wasn’t

Read More
644 Words | 3 Pages

Lily soon learned to accept killing her mother and to move on from it. Lily never truly hated herself over what had happened even though sometimes it seemed like it. She learned to be content with herself and not to care what others think. She didn’t even care when people saw her with Zach in public even though it was totally against people’s beliefs at that time “Becca and I watch for Zach in the lunchroom and sit with him every chance we get. We have reputations as “black lovers,” which is how it is put to us” (Kidd 301).

Read More
1401 Words | 6 Pages

Although Lily is young, she feels that she has the right to make this statement because she has already experienced so much in her life. With that being said, people may judge Lily because of what she says or does but that is because not everyone knows about

Read More
705 Words | 3 Pages

Two of her sisters have this problem and it has genuinely affected August for better or worse. Lily’s father, T-Ray, deals with his mental illness by using violence and taking his anger out on Lily because of what happened with his wife Deborah. This causes Lily to feel unloved by her father. In the beginning of the story, Lily runs away from home to escape her tragic life with T. Ray.

Read More
2453 Words | 10 Pages

Lily seems to have a happy ending. The story ends “happily ever after”, the problem is solved right away. Lily’s life became bliss once she lets everything go. Lily was able to forgive herself and both of her parents. and as a result was blessed with a beautiful life filled with the love that she so needed and deserved.

Read More
1847 Words | 8 Pages

The next time her mom came around, An-Mei decided she didn’t care what her grandmother said or did to her, she was going to be leaving with her mom. More time went by, and An-Mei’s mother had finally sat down to tell her all about the raping and why she had to abandon her like that. An-Mei’s mother commits suicide after telling her the truth about everything she had gone through with the rich rapist man. Now it is time for An-Mei to tell her grown daughter Rose this story many years later.

Read More
1919 Words | 8 Pages

Lily barely knew her own mother, and T. Ray, her father, abuses her and could care less. Lily gets to experience the parent-child love from Rosaleen. Kidd asserts that the interaction between different races can lead to loving

Read More
624 Words | 3 Pages

Instead of loathing T.Ray, she begins to search for a love that she feels he should and can feel for her. Throughout the novel Lily craves love, love she never felt from her parents. She has finally found the love she sought in Tiburon. After discovering what happened with her parents Lily learned not to judge as much. Lily overall has grown into a more fully engaged

Read More
878 Words | 4 Pages

The conflict between Lily and the ladies started right off at the beginning of the story when they discuss the letter that Mrs. Carson received from the feeble-mined institution in Ellisville, where they want to send Lily.

Read More
2118 Words | 9 Pages

“What the three ladies infer about Lily Daw” In the story “Lily Daw and the Three Ladies”, we are introduced to our three ladies who are: Mrs. Carson, Mrs. Watts and Aimee. These three ladies speak about a young girl who seems to have some sort of disability or as mentioned in the story was “feebleminded”, this young girl goes by name of Lily Daw. I assume that Lily has a disability not only because the three ladies are trying to send her to this mental institute for the “feebleminded” but because the author portrays Lily’s character with a very special tone of voice and her character is also not able to make-out correct full sentences like the rest of the characters in the story.

Read More

More about Sue Monk Kidd

Related Topics

Open Document