The Secret Life Of Bees: Character Analysis

When the challenges that people face become increasingly difficult, people tend to back down from the challenges that they encountered. However, there are some people who will rise to the occasion and do what is needed to be done to overcome those obstacles. Throughout the reading of La Línea, Maus, and The Secret Life of Bees, the same overlapping theme that only a few stand-up and overcome their problems remains constant.

The book La Línea was the book with the largest variety of challenges ranging from strenuous physical activity to exhausting mental strain. Throughout the book it talks about how some people don’t try to leave, like Miguel's friend Chuy, “we all knew Chuy wasn't going anywhere”(Jaramillo 8). Only a minute fraction of

However, it is the story in which the main character takes the most unexpected path and does what few people would have done at the time. Lily, living in South Carolina moves in with four black women. This is very unorthodox because, “South Carolina was Dixie first, American second"(Kidd 147). Lily not only lives in the South with a black family, she enjoys living with them. She became upset when her lifestyle was being criticized by a secretary, “You’re staying in her house? She said. I wanted to tell her that her lipstick was bleeding into her wrinkles around her lips. Yes, ma’am, I’m staying there.”(Kidd 157). I think that it would be very uncharacteristic for a white girl raised by a parent with almost no moral compass to end up living in a house of black women. By doing this Lily took the stand against the societal norms and showed that she saw no difference between her and her new family. Lily took the difficult path and went against much of what she saw in society and did the opposite by living with people of the opposite race. I think that Lily was an exception and the main reason that she went against the common beliefs of society at that time was she was lonely. Also, she was tired of being an outcast and had finally found a group that would accept her. It is without a doubt astonishing that a young girl would make a stand and do what very few white people of the time