Is it possible to lose a mother then get four in return? It is for Lily Owens, a fourteen year old girl living in South Carolina in the 1960’s. In The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, the main character, Lily, lost her mother at a very young age, but she found many more mothers along the way to help her cope with her loss, grow out of ignorance, and to find love again.
For example Rosaleen, Lily’s nanny, is a mother-like figure because she takes care of Lily when her father does not do a good job of it. At the beginning of the novel, Lily lives with her father, who she calls T-Ray. Her mother died when she was young, and now she only has her father and Rosaleen to live with her and to raise her. T-Ray convinces Lily to think that her mother left them, not that she died. T-Ray told Lily, “‘The truth is your mother ran off and left you’” (39). Rosaleen takes care of Lily. Roseleen is someone Lily can talk to when T-Ray is being abusive. When Lily had enough of T-Ray’s cruel punishments, she ran away with Rosaleen to try to find someone who knew Lily’s mother, Deborah, to find answers about what really happened to her.
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They were both African-American, and they helped Lily grow out of the ignorance of racism in the world. May was very emotional, and she reminded Lily of Deborah because Lily remembers seeing her mother feeding marshmallows and graham crackers to cockroaches to lead them out of the house, and May did that too. Lily thinks that May might have known Deborah and taught her that trick. At first, June was reluctant to have Lily stay at their house because she was white. “‘But she’s white, August’” (87), June said, nervous to have Lily in the house. Throughout the novel, June and Lily bonded and became closer friends. They helped each other get over their inclinations toward people with the same skin color. May and June nurtured Lily, and made her a more amiable and unprejudiced