ipl-logo

Wall In The Secret Life Of Bees

959 Words4 Pages

Imagine that you are a child, trapped in an abusive house, and that there is no way to improve the potion you are in right now. Envision a tunnel of darkness where there is only fear with no sense hope. An indirect characterization of Lily, the protagonist, a symbolism of a wall that helps Lily cope with her emotions, and an illusion to a biblical event that changed the course of Lily’s life are incorporated throughout Sue Monk Kidd’s novel, The Secret Life of Bees to convey a message of hope. In particular, these literary devices are included throughout the novel to convey that a person is always capable of improving their quality of life. For instance, indirect characterization is applied to display Lily growing in bravery to demonstrate …show more content…

The wall was a way to lessen the burden of distress and sadness on people’s lives, therefore, improving it. For example, “all those bits of paper… stuck between the stones are things May has written down - all the heavy feelings she carries around. It seems like the only thing that helps her” (98). May built the wall to have a place of comfort and refuge where she, and later Lily, can deal with the suffering in their lives. To clarify, the wall was not just a wall, it symbolized a place of refuge for both Lily and May, a place where they could loosen their grip on their grievances and relax. After the death of April, May’s twin sister, May built the wailing wall to cope with her suffering. Kidd inspired the wall from a similar structure found in Jerusalem where the Jewish people go to mourn for their lost ones. Corresponding to the Jewish prayers, the little pieces of paper between the stones that May has written down, all of the heavy feelings she carries around, help her to manage her emotions. Lily, after worrying about her mother, adds a paper with her mother’s name to the wall to alleviate the pain she feels. After adding the paper, Lily was able to relax and let go of her feelings. In this manner, the wall symbolized a place of refuge for both Lily and May, a place where they could go to in a time of need and suffering. Through adding a paper to the wall, the lives of May, Lily, and the people of Jerusalem were improved upon releasing their

Show More
Related
623 Words | 3 Pages

I do not know if that is the ideal time to build a wall, but I was so happy to see my walls being made that I became very possessive of the time spent on them and wanted the four men to be building only my walls. I didn’t begrudge them lunchtime or time taken to smoke a cigarette, but why did they have to stop working when the day was at an end, and why did the day have to come to an end, for that matter? How I loved to watch those men work, especially the man named Jared Clawson. (Kincaid 177).

Read More
481 Words | 2 Pages

One of the themes presented by Sue Monk Kidd in, “The Secret Life of Bees” is pushing boundaries. In the book, Lily runs away from her abusive father and stays at a beekeepers house where she would be safe. This beekeepers house is a black family and while she stayed there and everyone was constantly pushing boundaries. The story relates to the article written by Nadra Kareem Nittle which was called, “How the Freedom Riders Movement Began”. This article was about a group of people called freedom riders traveling together to end the Jim Crow laws or other known as, racist laws.

Read More
625 Words | 3 Pages

The Walls family lived a very out of the ordinary life compared to most families. They lived all over the West side of America from Phoenix to San Francisco. Yet, one of the most important areas they lived in was Battle Mountain. Jeannette spent a huge chunck of her childhood here. Battle Mountain was where she started to grow up, experiencing learning to swim to kissing a boy.

Read More
471 Words | 2 Pages

In Fahrenheit 451 the books for the characters were definitely a symbol of feeling in control. The characters being able to read the books, then burn them afterwards made them feel like others didn’t have control over them and their memory and that it’s theirs to keep forever. In WALL-E the plant was a symbol of hope for the characters. Them receiving the boot with the plant in it, let them know it was safe for them to return to Earth where they belong and that they could start a whole new

Read More
945 Words | 4 Pages

After many years of avoiding and being angry at her parents, Walls finally goes to her father to forgive him after she found out that he was dieing. The author stated “"Now, no snot­slinging or boohooing about 'poor ol'Rex,'" Dad said. "I don't want any of that, either now or when I'm gone. " I nodded. "But you always loved your old man, didn't you?"

Read More
453 Words | 2 Pages

When World War 1 broke out in 1914, the United States attempted to remain neutral and was a strong advocate the neutral rights of nations. The U.S. liked to believe that the war was strictly a European conflict, but they would soon understand that they were inadvertently part of the war effort and entering war was inevitable. The U.S. was never truly neutral in the first place, but in fact supporting Europe the whole time. The reasons for breaking neutrality were more political and economic. It was the United States best interest to abandon its neutrality, and choose to go to war on the side of the allies for the future protection of American assets and welfare.

Read More
1613 Words | 7 Pages

To begin, the lack of financial stability in the Walls family has always been problematic, however as the mother of her children, Rose Mary never contributed much to the family income due to her stubbornness and free-spirited nature. A prime example of Rose Mary not providing for her family is a constant lack of food in the house. The children’s hunger is apparent when Jeannette says, “We did eat less. Once we lost our credit at the commissary, we quickly ran out of food. Sometimes Dad’s odd jobs would come through, or he’d win some money gambling, and we’d eat for a few days.

Read More
1852 Words | 8 Pages

To illustrate, Walls begins painting her memoir by describing what was likely her first experience of neglect. After moving from place to place for years, when Walls family finally settles down in Welch, West Virginia she is forced to reconsider her circumstances. As Walls ages she realizes that she is not living a healthy, stable life style, but instead the lifestyle of a child subjective to physical and mental neglect. (“Jeannette Walls

Read More
488 Words | 2 Pages

The poem “Where There’s a Wall” by Joy Kogawa uses various imagery and symbolism to further enhance the effectiveness of the poem and its message. Like most other poems, “Where There’s a Wall” contains several layers of meaning, which is why it requires the reader to dig through the little details and examples in order to see the big picture. One segment of the poem makes reference to peaceful methods to approach the obstacle of a wall standing in one’s way. It states, "Where there's a wall/ there's a way/ around, over, or through/ there's a gate/ maybe a ladder/ a door."

Read More
539 Words | 3 Pages

This demonstrates human resilience because she presses on with her life, despite being badly burned and being in a hospital for several weeks. She even gets on her feet and leaves the hospital with her father, despite not being completely healed from her burns. She also has the resilience to deal with her father’s irresponsible behavior when he refuses to pay the bill (Walls 14). Another part of the book where her resilience is demonstrated is when Walls’s family is traveling through the desert after refusing to pay the hospital bill. She has to put up with her father’s bizarre phobia of the government, as well

Read More
178 Words | 1 Pages

Sue Monk Kidd, author of The Secret Life of Bees, symbolizes the Boatright’s pink house as a spinner that leaves in the positive and removes the negative. For instance, “‘It separates out the honey,’ she said. ‘Takes out the bad stuff, leaves in the good. I’ve aways thought how nice it would be to have spinners like this for human beings. Just toss them in the let the spinner do its work’” (77).

Read More
1058 Words | 5 Pages

The joy of learning is what unified the Walls family and is the source of the children’s most endearing memories. They would read together and bond over learning. Jeannette recounts her happier moments “after dinner, the whole family was stretched out on the benches and the floor of the depot and read with the dictionary in the middle of the room so we could look up words we didn’t know. (Walls 56-57) The Walls not only believed in a growth mindset; sharing knowledge was in fact how Rex and Rose Mary best expressed their genuine love and affection towards their children.

Read More
570 Words | 3 Pages

In “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the female narrator is greatly troubled by the suppression of her imagination by her husband and her ultimate isolation due to this subordination. These feelings are reflected through the author’s use of setting as the narrator’s dreary and malicious descriptions of the house and the wallpaper mirrors her emotional position. Throughout the reading, the reader is exposed to the narrator’s in-depth loss of touch with reality as she sinks further and further into her own reality. As she becomes more isolated, her descriptions of the house become more abstract as she begins to focus on the wallpaper and starts to see herself as being hidden behind it.

Read More
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.

Read More
833 Words | 4 Pages

Roger Waters represents the lyrics “all in all you’re just another brick in the wall” as education being a pain, and a worthless amount of time. Personally, the wall is as a self-isolating barrier we build through our lives. The bricks are people, or events, which turns us inward, away from others and reality (Marcelo). Pink Floyd describes education as adding another brink to the wall. As can be seen, the individuality within the students are taken away from the teachers and the school system as told through Pink

Read More

More about Wall In The Secret Life Of Bees

Related Topics

Open Document