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The Secret Life Of Bees Rhetorical Analysis

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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. The event …show more content…

In this passage, Kidd characterized Lily as immature, and a primary trace of this characterization can be spotted at the very beginning of the passage, where Lily questions “How dare she? How dare she leave me? I was her child.” (Kidd 259). The interrogative syntax in this monologue suggests that Lily is still confused as to why her mom left her, even after August spent time explaining it to her. Moreover, this confusion shows that Lily views that story one-sidedly, and not being understanding of her mother’s situation, which constructs her immaturity. As a result, it demonstrates how not fully comprehending the story can inevitably generate displeasing traits within one’s self, such as being immature. As Lily continues to release her anger, readers are able to secure a tighter grip on Lily’s characterization of immaturity. Evidently, when she reveals, “ My mother had left me, Who cared about the honey on the walls?” (Kidd 259). The interrogative syntax represented with a question mark shows that Lily believes that her hardship can justify the mess she has created, and nothing else should matter as much as the fact that her mom has left her. This evidence characterizes her as narcissistic or immature, subsequently supporting the claim of the danger of misunderstanding, as these traits derived from Lily’s lack of apprehension in this story. Towards the end of the passage, Lily begins to reflect on her action by declaring, “No place to go. Just right here, right now, where the truth was.” (Kidd 260). The diction of “truth” in this line evinces that Lily still looks at this story only from her perspective, and she believes that she's entirely right for being mad at her mom. Moreover, characterizes Lily as immature, plus conveys how detrimental misconstruction can be to a person’s characters. Over the course of the passage, Kidd develops the theme of the danger of

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Lily’s mother was stripped of her limits by Lily’s father and her sense of independence was gone. As Lily’s mother said, the more she accepted her husband's apologies, the more her tolerance for the abuse went up, which ultimately resulted in Lily’s mother being somewhat of a villain while her father was alive. Lastly, Lily’s dad plays the role of an antagonist perfectly as he shows the reader what a negative force looks like. Lily continuously shows the reader of the book the violent temper and the mental and physical abuse that they had to encounter with Lily's father.

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Lily believes that she must manipulate men, who are wealthier than she is, in order to move up in society. When Lily is on the train ride to Bellomont, she orchestrates a plan to bump into Mr. Gryce. Even though Lily finds Mr. Gryce boring, she knows that he is rich. Lily manipulates Mr. Gryce because “when a girl has no mother to palpitate for her she must… be on the alert for herself”(21). Lily believes that if she married Mr. Gryce, all of her financial troubles would be solved.

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