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The Importance Of The Moon In The Secret Life Of Bees

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Around 100 different gods are related to the moon. Some live on it while others may only control it from somewhere else and few have no control over the moon at all. Another thing about these Moon gods is that most of them are actually women. In The Secret Life of Bees, author Sue Monk Kidd uses the symbolism of the moon to show a connection between femininity and divinity. Black Mary carries a crescent moon with her and has also been said to live on the moon. Another example of this connection between the Moon and divine femininity is in Greek mythology. They had a god, Luna, who was also stated to be the personification of the moon as a goddess. It’s not just with Mary and these other goddesses that we see the moon's femininity. In fact there is so much more throughout the book and in the …show more content…

With the Madonna being on the moon this calls back to many other cultures like Buddhism, and their deity Tara who also lived on the moon. August explains to Lily about how the Black Madonna lives on the Moon and how the Moon has always been a mystery to people. Kidd is calling on some very old ideas and turning them into a new, modern idea of womanhood

When Lily was in the forest she had a very strange dream. She explains, “I was back on the peach farm, sitting out behind the tractor shed, and even though it was broad daylight, I could see a huge, round moon in the sky. Next I heard a sound like ice breaking, and, looking up, I saw the moon crack apart and start to fall.” Lily also wonders whether showing August the picture of her mother would cause the moon to "break loose and fall out of the sky." Lily's image of a shattered moon symbolizes the way the loss of her mother has shattered her emotionally. We see this when Lily asks the Black Mary to “Fix me”
By making contact with the strong, divine person inside her, Lily can work to heal the pain left over from not having a

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In American writer Sue Monk Kidd's fiction novel The Secret Life of Bees, the reader is introduced to Lily Owens, a naive and unfortunate character longing for her mother's absence. Growing up with an abusive father, T Ray, Lily is kept miserable until a stroke of confidence allows her to run away with the only person on her side, Rosaleen. Through multiple influences and revelations of truth, she can develop individually with the help of her new family, the Boatwrights, transforming her into a profound and confident character. One of the major influences Lily undergoes throughout the book is the religious rituals August and the Boatwrigts assign her. An example of this is the observance of a religious statue, The Black Mary, worshiped by the

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Journal #7 On page 182, Lily thinks to herself, “If August is the red heart on Mary’s chest, Rosaleen is the fist.” Lily believes August has the heart of Mary because she puts everyone before herself. For example, August tells Lily, “If it (the Caribbean Pink House) can lift Mary’s heart like that, I guess she ought to live inside it” (147). August wanted to choose a different color, but what mattered to her more was her little sister, May. August believes that with all the pain and grief May suffers from she deserves to have things that make her happy.

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Bees hide an entire colony within their hives, they hide little cities and communities. The book, The Secret Life of Bees, shows a lot of symbolism that relates to bees. In this book, written by Sue Monk Kidd, a 14-year-old named Lily Owens has memories of pulling the trigger on her own mother as a child. Her abusive father who goes by T-Ray makes her life miserable. Lily runs away with her caretaker Rosaleen to the Boatwright sisters, whom live on a honey farm.

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Throughout the story Abilene listens to her diviner tales that all connect to an old letter she found. As the book goes on the reader learns Ms. Sadie has more to do with her father’s past than it seems in her diviner stories. Moon Over Manifest

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Uni was the goddess virgin, and goddess of birth, she was married to Jupiter and she was combined with Hera, the Greek goddess of birth and marriage creating Juno, Roman goddess. The last of the major gods was Minerva the goddess of the moon, and virgin goddess of wisdom and war she was combined with Athena, the Greek goddess creating the Roman goddess

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In Greek mythology they believed in a second order of divine, males were Titans and women were called Titaness. The Titans were one of twelve primeval deities. The Titans were made up of six men and six women, their mother was Gaia, who was the mother of the earth and the father Uranus was the father of the sky. The six Titans were Oceanus, Hyperion, Coeus, Cronus, Crius, and Lapetus. The six Titaness were Mnemosyne, Tethys, Theia, Phoebe, Rhea, and Themis.

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Chapter 1 The five aspects of a quest are: (a) a quester, (b) a place to go, (c) a stated reason to go there, (d) challenges and trials en route, and (e) a real reason to go there. A book that uses the aspects of a quest very nicely is the secret life of bees. (a) The quester in this story is a young girl named lily owens who fights with her father and does not have a mother because lily accidently shot her when she younger.

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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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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.

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Diana is a Roman goddess included in Roman mythology. She is the goddess of the woods, children and childbirth, fertility, chastity, the moon, wild animals, and occasionally, light. The name Diana means "heavenly, divine". Her Greek counterpart, Artemis, was a part of Greek mythology. She was originally the goddess of wild animals and hunting until one day she took over as the goddess of the moon who originally, Luna, another Roman goddess.

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August explains to Lily that “Our Lady is not some magical being out there somewhere, like a fairy godmother. She’s not the statue in the parlor. She's something inside of you” (Kidd 288). The use of simile in comparing Mary to a magical being, like a fairy godmother, adds a childish undertone to August’s dialogue, and shows that regardless of what Lily has been through, August recognizes that she is still a child, one in search of comfort in the absence of her mother. The symbolism of Our Lady being “inside” of Lily and not just “the statue in the parlor” gives her a sense of belonging.

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For example, Hera the god of marriage, Iris goddess of rainbows, etc. Rather than physical ability powers that men have, for example, strength, and stamina, as Zeus

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Selene Goddess of MOON! Shaylie Hill Do you know who the goddess of the moon is? Do you know who had a symbol as torch? Well I do and her name is Selene!

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For example, in Egyptian mythology, Atum was the first being present, and although this being did not have a specific gender, the myth refers to Atum as a “he.” Atum went on to create a number of male beings that represented major aspects of life. Geb was associated with Earth, Osiris was king of the dead, and Seth was a trickster/evil. Geb represented the place Egyptians lived, Osiris could control who judged the dead and provided fertility and prosperity, and Seth reflected the many challenges people face against evil and mischief. While Maat represented law, order, and truth, and Hathor was considered the first great mother goddess, these female deities seemed to mainly contribute to the creation of other gods or aspects of existing human

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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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