The Secret Life Of Bees By Sue Monk Kidd

The Secret Life of Bees, written by Sue Monk Kidd, portrays a teenage girl named Lily

Owens. Lily lives with her father ,T.Ray, on a peach farm just outside Sylvan, South Carolina.

Lily is forced to deal with the troubles of being an abused daughter, without a mother, friends, or a

better father. Set in 1964, racist men and women still roamed the streets downtown near Lily’s

peach farm. When Rosaleen, Lily’s black stand-in mother, defends herself and is thrown in jail,

Lily deserts her life in search of a new one. She and Rosaleen end up in Tiburon living in a pink

house with three black women. But, Lily’s journey to discover more about herself and her

mother, but also to escape her past, leads to new findings of unique loving

Furthermore other key characters, like August

and Rosaleen, displayed their continuing support and love for Lily and, later on, May, both in the

movie and book. Zach, too, seemed to have the same feelings as his double in the book. If all of

the characters in the movie changed their personalities the movie would have a totally different

outcome.

First one of the key differences that really stood out to me is that most characters

dispositions remained the same as in the book, some, like May, were represented in the movie

differently than anticipated. May acted, most of the time in the book, as a person without a mental

disorder would and only at certain times was set off by specific words or actions. Compared to in

the movie where there was a noticeable swing in her mods daily and there was a difference

between May, her sisters, and other people on an everyday basis.This was significant to me

because I thought of May differently after watching the movie and could not relate to her as much

after seeing her as she was in the movie. Also, in the book T.Ray was illustrated as a rough,

This makes a difference because in the book T.Ray was a looming darker character in

the shadows and the reader didn’t know what he was doing or feeling and he could have been

forgotten more easily the whole time Lily was with the Boatwright sisters. Differentiating from the

movie where the watcher could see his frustration and desperation and not just assume what was

going on.

In conclusion, the journey Lily underwent helped her to discover more about herself and

her mother and it lead to new unique loving relationships and hardships that were overcome. The

similarities strengthen the best parts of both the book and movie, in my opinion. The aspects of the

book that have been changed are differences but those differences are not bad. They accentuate

the creativity of the movies filmer and his/her opinion on the book. The book is different from the

movie but it is also similar. I have combined the movie and book together when I think about The

Secret Life of Bees. I have learned what T.Ray was doing while Lily was away, from the movie,

and I have also learned how delicate a person can be from May. I have chosen to critique