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The Secret Life Of Bees Reflection Essay

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“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. When Lily Owens was four years old, her mother died and she have always blamed herself for it throughout the …show more content…

It has so much combinations of wonderful characters, principles, moments, scenes, and words. One thing that I also liked about the story was the little facts that was mentioned about the bees. The bees actually played an important part of the book because almost all of the main characters and Lily’s situations can be compared to one of the bees who go and collect honeys. Bees also do work or do chores just like what humans do. My favorite part of the book is when it showed forgiveness at the end of the of the story when Lily and her father talked, and also when she stays at Tiburon with the Boatwrights family because she finally has mothers that will take care and love …show more content…

Her major themes are motherhood, the transference of misery, dependence, bees as an example of human society, and race relations. Motherhood is totally one her major theme because the protagonist only wants to understand her true mother and wants to know if her she really loved her. Also, I like how one of the theme is the race relations in American history because Kidd pictured the life during the time in the setting. In addition, I feel like I relate to August because I would also want to help others who is needing it and believes something good will happen, always being

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“The gun on the floor. Bending to pick it up. The noise that exploded around us. This is what I know about myself. She was all I wanted.

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Written in a way almost unique to other writers, Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees allows readers to escape into a world of love and comfort that can only be found within the Boatwright sisters and the Daughters of Mary. Representing a society of women that so differs from what Lily has previously known, having been surrounded by a culture with no regard for women and having hardly any understanding of her female potential, August and her circle open up Lily to a whole nother world of possibilities. Their doting on Lily, despite the racial divide, and lessons on the Black Mary fill in the maternal gap left by her own deceased mother, Deborah. It is because of her essential escape from Sylvan and T-Ray’s oppressive attitude, to the welcoming Boatwright clan, that Lily is able to make something new of herself and open

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