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The Secret Life Of Bees Character Analysis

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In The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd the protagonist Lily Owens struggles with a both emotionally and physically abusive relationship with her father, T. Ray, and the guilt of accidently killing her mother when she was a toddler. This causes Lily to have a very strong longing for a maternal figure in her life. After Lily sees her housemaid, Rosaleen, perform an act of courage, Lily gains enough confidence to run away from her father with Rosaleen in search of information about her mother. They end up at the house of the Boatwright sisters, May, June, and August. Here Lily transforms from a girl to a woman, learns about herself, and feels what it’s like to be a part of a community. At the end of the book there is a point where the
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Through indirect characterization, Sue Monk Kidd, author of The Secret Life of Bees, displays Rosaleen as an obstinate character in order to exhibit the southern racism at hand. For example, Rosaleen is indirectly characterized when she comes into contact with the town’s most notorious racist, Franklin Posey, and will not apologize for standing up for her beliefs. Recalling the event, she exclaims, “‘he hit me till the policeman said that was enough. They didn’t get no apology, though’” (46).

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In The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd, Lily Owens is raised by her abusive father, T. Ray, because her mother died when she was young. Despite Lily’s negative upbringing, her nanny, Rosaleen Daise, and friend, August Boatwright, fill in for Lily’s mother’s absence and her father’s poor parental influence. T. Ray Owens raises Lily with discrimination and violence which encourages her to be the opposite. Lily’s father is very sexist and teaches her that girls are not as good as boys. T. Ray does not want Lily to read books because reading leads to college and he thinks that college is a waste of money for girls.

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"Some Lessons From the Assembly Line" review In the article "Some Lessons From the Assembly Line" by Andrew Braaksma (2005). Braaksma is trying to reach the audience of college students and blue-collar workers. With his personal experience he shows how his friends who attend college and haven 't worked long hours don 't understand why he is happy to be back at school, they don 't understand what it is like to work long hard hours all day long and not be paid accordingly. "There are few things as cocksure as a college student who has never been out in the real world, and people my age always seem to overestimate the value of their time and knowledge. After a particularly exhausting string of 12-hour days at a plastics factory, I remember being shocked at how small my check seemed" Braaksma (2005).

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"The Secret Life of Bees", by Sue Monk Kidd, is a first-person narrative through the eyes of 14-year-old Lily Owens, a white girl in 1964 South Carolina who runs away with her African-American maid Rosaleen in search of clues to reveal her mother's past. From the gecko, Lily discloses the abusive conditions of living with her father, T. Ray, since the violent death of her mother that she expresses was her fault and longs to find some answers that will help her move on. As further events unfold, Rosaleen and Lily manage to escape to Tiburon, a city she finds her mother had spent time in, and hunt down an African-American honey farmer, August Boatwright, to whom they find after stumbling across her honey jar with a Black Virgin Mary on it. August

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891 Words | 4 Pages

Bees are a mysterious species who have an incredible life that we know nothing about; in connection we live crazy, mysterious, lives with ups and downs; goods and bads. The secret life of bees by Sue Monk Kidd is an extraordinary story about a teenager Lily Owens, her abusive father, her mother, and numerous friends. Lily lost her mother at a young age, so she runs away; she ends up living with a loving family of women and finds mothers within them. She learns about friendships, overcoming, forgiveness, and love. In The secret Life of Bees the author shows theme through conflict and symbolism.

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1050 Words | 5 Pages

Journey and quests are known for traveling from one place to another. In other ways, a journey is known to have perspective on different types of emotions. It’s the process of changing and developing over a period of time throughout the characters in writing or storytelling. Most best-selling novels require some meaning of journey throughout the author’s writing. One of the best examples would be “The Secret Life of Bees” by Sue Monk Kidd.

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Throughout the Secret Life of Bees, Lily Owens becomes more mature as she lives in the pink house and learns that all people are equal. She also becomes more mature as she learns more about her mother's past, and learns to forgive herself for her death. In the beginning of the book, Lily is selfish and immature. She says that “People who think dying is the worst thing don’t know a thing about life.” Through this, the reader sees how much Lily's life has been affected by her mother's death.

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418 Words | 2 Pages

Have you ever felt like a lost bee, buzzing around with a broken wing, searching for a place to belong? That’s what happens in “The Secret Life of Bees” by Sue Monk Kidd. Lily Owens, the main character, runs away from home after a series of unfortunate events and her abusive father T.Ray. After searching for something related to her mother, Lily stumbles upon the Boatwrights house where August, the head of the Boatwrights, takes Lily in. Overall, August has most influenced Lily's growth and development.

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Although Lily did suffer a great loss from losing her mom, she gained so much more with the love and support that the Boatwrights and their group gave her. She has gained friends, someone to look up to, and the sense of family from all of them. Without the loss of her mom and the abuse of her dad she would never of gotten the experience of such powerful female role models and a new

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1450 Words | 6 Pages

The Secret Life of Bees, an American novel written by Sue Monk Kidd, presents Lily Owens’ journey to seek for the love of a mother, as she ran away from home to stay at the Boatwright sisters’ house to escape her father’s abuse. Throughout the book, readers can infer that Lily misses her mom immensely, however, aside from yearning for her mother’s presence, Lily also expresses her curiosity in her mother’s life before her death. One day, she finds out from August that her mother has left her and ran away from home before she died. This knowledge alters everything that Lily feels for her mother, and she completely forgets about the motherly tenderness that she dreams of everyday. Instead, all she can feel is resentment and hatred.

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1401 Words | 6 Pages

The Secret Lives of People The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd, is an interesting story that connects human lives to bees. The story takes place in 1964 during the Civil Rights Movement and fourteen year-old Lily Owens leaves her abusive father and her home in Sylvan, South Carolina to go to Tiburon with hopes to find information on her mother. Throughout the story, Lily struggles with many internal conflicts and also meets several mother figures along the way.

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2539 Words | 11 Pages

She leaves home on a journey and finds the Boatwright sisters who are beekeepers. Through her experiences with the sisters and finding out more information about her mother and her death, she is forced to confront her father. She returns to the Boatwright sisters and becomes surrounded by a community that can help her heal from her past trauma and gain strength which is represented by the bees and Black Madonna jars of honey. In The Secret Life of Bees, Lily’s perception of her father changes throughout the story. At the beginning of the story, Lily views her father as an unloving person because of his abusive habits and the

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In the novel Secret Life of Bees and today prejudice is shown for people’s sexual preference, age but especially race. Since Lily was little she has been told by T. Ray that white people are better and smarter than black people. In the story Lily tells the reader what T-Ray had told her,“T. Ray did not think colored women were smart.” (Kidd 78) “Staying in a colored house with colored women, eating off their dishes, lying on their sheets-it was not something I was against, but I was brand new to it, and my skin never felt so white to me.”

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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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My name is Delaney Trushel. I am a recent graduate from the University of South Carolina Aiken and am extremely excited to begin my athletic training journey. I received my bachelor's in exercise and sports science in just three years. During my final semester at Aiken, I was given the opportunity to intern with our athletic trainer (200+ hours). Throughout my internship, I observed different techniques, evaluations, and injuries across multiple sports.

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