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Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life Of Bees

1067 Words5 Pages

What does it take to unlock a heart of stone? A pink house, hundreds of bees, and three unique beekeepers. These things are what turned fourteen year-old Lily’s heart of stone to a heart of pure gold. Set in the 1960s, Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees introduces Lily, a typical teenager with a troubled past, who bases her life around an image of her mother, a pair of white gloves, and a picture of a African-American Mary with an address. As Lily and Rosaleen run away from her father and the law, they are taken away to a whirling world of bees and three ladies who open Lily’s eyes to a new world of forgiveness and what it means to have unconditional love. Sue Monk Kidd’s heroine Lily Owens undergoes a transformation from being a …show more content…

Tired of lying to August, Lily decides to tell the truth to her, and find out about her mother, Deborah, hoping to hear exactly what she had pictured. As Lily unfolds the truth about her mother’s past, she becomes frustrated learning that she wasn’t up to her expectations. Lily wishes that her mother had “been smart enough, or loving enough, to realize everybody has burdens that crush them, only they don't give up their children” (278). Furious, she believes her mother is a blind and foolish person who doesn't know what love is. Hurt by the truth, Lily realizes that “once you know the truth, you can't ever go back and pick up your suitcase of lies. Heavier or not, the truth is yours now” (255). Disappointed, Lily’s image of her perfect and loving mother fades away. August then states that Deborah came back for Lily, hoping to take her away from her father. Knowing this, Lily then understands, and forgives her, with some troubles. She chooses to “forgive us both, although sometimes in the night my dreams will take me back to the sadness, and I have to wake up and forgive us again” (301). By forgiving, Lily understands that everyone is human, and even though her mother isn’t in her presence, she will always love her. By telling the truth to August and opening up about her emotions, Lily Owens proves to mature from a hesitant, questioning teen to an understanding young

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805 Words | 4 Pages

It doesn’t take a wizard to see Zach loves you. And every one of the Daughters loves you” (Kidd 242). August makes Lily feel better and clears her conscience about her mother. Later in the story, Lily gets confirmation she did kill her mother from T-Ray, but, because August talked to Lily, she was not completely distraught. In conclusion, August impacts Lily in a good way and helps her with her mom.

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652 Words | 3 Pages

Ray is at work one day, Lily sneaks out of the house to go and free Rosaleen. Freeing Rosaleen was not as easy as Lily thought it was going to be, but she manage to get it accomplished. Rosaleen and Lily decided to hitchhike to Tiburon, South Carolina, because she found a picture of Deborah's that had Tiburon written on the back. When they arrive at Tiburon, Lily finds the exact picture of Mary on honey jars in a grocery store. Lily finds out from the person working at the store that the honey belongs to the Boatwright sisters, a local black family of sisters.

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211 Words | 1 Pages

Set in the year 1964, “The Secret Life of Bees” written by Sue Monk Kidd is a novel written about the coming of age and maturation of Lily Owens, a young girl struggling to heal from the pain of her mother's death. Growing up without a mother was hard enough for Lily, especially when she was deemed as the underlying cause for her death. Lily was surrounded by her abusive father T-Ray, and her stand-in mother Rosaleen until with a little help from the bees, she decided it was time for her to escape. Throughout the novel, bees were used as a powerful symbol. The bee colony represented an unspoken guide for Lily, a portal of communication, and the relationship between the women in the novel.

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1450 Words | 6 Pages

In this passage, Kidd characterized Lily as immature, and a primary trace of this characterization can be spotted at the very beginning of the passage, where Lily questions “How dare she? How dare she leave me? I was her child.” (Kidd 259). The interrogative syntax in this monologue suggests that Lily is still confused as to why her mom left her, even after August spent time explaining it to her.

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1303 Words | 6 Pages

”(Kidd 256). Lily is a very deep character who holds a lot of guilt, sadness, and hatred over herself for what happened to her and her mother. But as she grows more mature and finally learns the truth she knows she has to accept it for what it is. She's able to work it out herself and realize there is a place for her in the world. She never was able to accept who she was until

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1368 Words | 6 Pages

August goes on to tell Lily a truth she was not expecting to hear; her mother left T.Ray and fled to the pink house several years after she was born. Lily is furious when she hears this but

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667 Words | 3 Pages

Throughout the book Lily revisits her memories of their time together by reading through her old journal entries from when she was a teenager, which help make sense of her current relationship with

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870 Words | 4 Pages

Lily Owens is a fourteen year old girl who accidentally killed her mom at the age of three. Before her mom died, she left Lily and her father, T. Ray. Lily grows up, runs away, and soon finds out that it is true her mom left her and doesn’t want to forgive her. In Sue Monk Kidd’s novel, The Secret Life of Bees, Lily has a coming of age moment when she learns how to cope with forgiving her mom. She learns how to forgive her mom by going through things such as: feeling as if her mother never wanted her, taking her anger out on things to help with the situation, and realizing her mom made a mistake.

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1164 Words | 5 Pages

Lastly, Lily finally builds up the courage to stand up to her father. She does this by saying, “I said I’m not leaving” (296). For Lily’s whole life, she was blamed for her mother’s death especially by her father. He is a terrible father to her because he mentally and physically abuses her, and makes her feel

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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

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705 Words | 3 Pages

She finds herself in a small town called Tiburon in South Carolina, living with August Boatwright who was once her mother’s maid. After staying in Tiburon for a while, Lily calls her father, curious if he knows what her favourite colour is. They only spoke for a short period of

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609 Words | 3 Pages

What is courtroom workgroup A courtroom workgroup is an unofficial arrangement between a criminal prosecutor, defense attorney and the judicial officer. The system was designed by James Eisenstein and Herbert, to observe the ways courts especially lower level courts finalize their decisions. The same group of courthouse regulars gather in the same courtroom in which they sit or stand in the same place and perform the same tasks ever day. The only difference in which they face each day is different names of the victim, witnesses, and defendants.

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1311 Words | 6 Pages

Her consideration of the town’s thoughts indicates that August is self-conscious of other people’s judgment. As a result, she allows this consciousness to cloud her judgment for a split second before reaching a final decision. Lily, finally understanding, says “‘All this time I just figured you liked pink’ . . . She laughed again” (Kidd 147). Combined with the use of short syntax, it proves once again that August is caring, acknowledging that Lily is able to grip what she said,

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730 Words | 3 Pages

Lily then consequently comes to find that the tables are turned and that her mother is the one who is in need of forgiveness. She shows her struggle by saying, “people in general would rather die than forgive” (Kidd 277). Capriciously, she contemplates the situation thinking for one moment “it is over and done,” but in the next she “would be picturing her in the pink house, or out by the wailing wall” (Kidd 278). Ultimately, after her entire debacle, with thrown honey jars as well as many headaches, Lily comes to learn that “you have to find a mother inside yourself” (Kidd 288). This idea sets Lily at ease giving her the knowledge that everything is going to be peaceful from this moment on and that she can take the time to learn to forgive others, just as she has to learn to forgive

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983 Words | 4 Pages

“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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