Nearly 20 million kids grow up without a mother. In The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd Lily lost her mother at age four and had a father who hated her. Lily accidentally shot her mother at a young age, and ever since her father blames her for what happened. Lily decides to run away with her house maid, Rosaleen, and start a new life. Change can really affect a person, just like it did with Lily, T-Ray and May.
Change is a crucial part of life. Three characters who have changed really stand out, Lily is one. Lily has changed a lot from the beginning to end; she had some prejudice buried inside her in the first few chapters. She said, “August is so intelligent, so cultured, and I was surprised by this. That’s when I knew I had some prejudice inside me” (Kidd 78). Throughout the story Lily was able to cope with the loss of her mother. After T-Ray came and found her , they talked at the end near the car. She was able to move on and continue with her live because she knew she could not do anything to change what had happened. There are two more characters that stand out, T-Ray and May.
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T-Ray was a war vet, he most likely suffered from PTSD from what we can understand. He has flashbacks like when he see’s Lily wearing the whale pin. He remembers back to when he gave it to her on Deborah’s birthday, “I gave that pin to your mother on her twenty-second birthday” (Kidd 292), and that is when he snaps back in time. When he finds Lily at the end and they argue, T-Ray snaps into the past and thinks Lily is Deborah, his wife and mother of Lily. towards the end of the book, it made it more clear that T-Ray has changed and I understood him more. When Lily goes to talk to him he tells her the truth and he seems to show sympathy. Emotions can change in a large way, May. After the death of her sister she felt the emotions of