Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life Of Bees

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“Addressing the wounds of loss and betrayal, Kidd demonstrates the power of women coming together to heal those wounds” (Kidd “Intro” 2). Set during the civil rights movement in the American South, Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees is a novel about coming-to adulthood and the often neglected longing for universal feminine divine. The Secret Life of Bees portrays the significance of a mother figure to the maturity and growth of her daughter. A mother is the most influential aspect as a daughter grows and helps them move towards independence and maturity. The bees further symbolize the role of Lily’s real ad surrogate mothers throughout the novel.

The significance role of bees is portrayed through the surrogate mothers and friends in …show more content…
Ray left a negative impact on Lily’s life causing unnecessary physical pain and emotional damage while she lived in her father’s household. Lily knees “were swollen with hundreds of red welts, pinprick bruises that would grow into a blue stubble across my skin” (Kidd 25). Lily became numb to T. Ray’s constant anger and “had been tortured like this enough times in my life that I'd stopped thinking of it as out of the ordinary; it was just something you had to put up from time to time” (Kidd 25). Since her mother’s death, she was forced to stand alone during T. Ray’s unnecessary abuse and was unable to stand up for herself. T. Ray punished Lily at will even when she did nothing wrong. For example, while Lily was out in the orchard admiring her mother’s things, T. Ray thought she was out fooling around with a boy. T. Ray wasn’t just capable of physical pain, he was also capable of emotional damage that constantly brought Lily down. She wanted to look fashionable like her classmates and “wear cashmere twin sets and plaid kilts mid-thigh” (Kidd 9), but T.Ray told Lily. Lily felt self-conscious due to the efforts her father made so she would not leave him and become independent. He thought he was capable of controlling her every movement. He tried to keep her under his power as long as he possibly

Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life Of Bees

In Sue Monk Kidd’s, The Secret Life of Bees, Kidd indirectly characterizes Rosaleen as capricious, to portray her as someone who deeply cares for Lily, but acts irrationally in uncomfortable situations. This personality trait is particularly prominent during her walk in town with Lily, and group of racist men insult her. Instead of reacting to the negative situation with the logic of a responsible adult who was registering to vote, she abruptly acts out like a child. “Coming alongside the men, Rosaleen…

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Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life Of Bees

In Sue Monk Kidd's novel The Secret Life of Bees the leading character, Lily, loses her mother as an infant and experiences harsh, unloving treatment from her father, yet gains maternal affection through the compassion and care of the characters August and Rosaleen. Rosaleen proved her love for lily when she allowed lily bring home a chick when lily was eight years old. T ray didn't want to keep the chick, but Rosaleen stepped in stating, “You ain't touching that chick.” This is what Sue Monk Kidd…

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Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life Of Bees

Sue Monk Kidd’s novel, The Secret Life of Bees, indirectly characterizes Lily’s father T-Ray, as a strict, unforgiving man because of his neglect of Lily and harsh punishments. Multiple instances present themselves throughout the beginning of the story that convey T-Ray’s style of parenting. Notably, the morning after T-Ray discovered Lily in the orchard, he shouts to her, “As long as you live under my roof, you’ll do what I say!” (Kidd 26). T-Ray’s outburst conveys his firm control over his daughter…

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Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life Of Bees

Sue Monk Kidd indirectly characterizes policemen in her novel The Secret Life of Bees as selfish people that follow society rather than protect it based on a solid and impartial code. During the time period before and after the Civil Rights Act, policemen were harsh and unfair to colored people while also pushing their duties aside to accommodate white people’s hatred of colored people. One such example of this injustice and ignorance of duty is revealed through Kidd’s novel, “After you left, that…

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Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life Of Bees

Secret Life of Bees Timeline Sue Monk Kidd’s novel, The Secret Life of Bees, is set in the 1960s, a complicated time in American history filled with turmoil from the civil rights movement, the fallout of segregation, and the fight for racial equality. Lily Owens, the protagonist, escapes her abusive father, T. Ray, with hopes of finding a connection with her dead mother. The following timeline of events, going year by year, leads the readers to understand the time in which Lily lived. 1960: January…

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Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life Of Bees

Love makes people feel like they can do anything. If Sue Monk Kidd's book The Secret Life of Bees came to life, I would agree. Love is an essential part of one's life. We should be open to accepting love. To start with, we should be open to accepting love so we can forgive others. For example, when T. Ray shows up at the Boatwright sisters' house to get Lily, they fight. He shouts, “‘How dare you leave me!...Deborah, You’re not leaving me again.’” (Kidd 294). In his mind, T. Ray is yelling at Deborah…

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Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life Of Bees

Changing Relationships and Bees Often, people undergo many trials and tribulations with the individuals they surround themselves with. These challenges can make or break connections, and they occur constantly. Whether it is consciously or subconsciously happening, relationships between peers can shift in mere seconds. Fundamental relationships, such as familial ones, are typically harder to change, with loving families forming unbreakable bonds in most cases. In nature, bees are often cited as the epitome…

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Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life Of Bees

Often, bees are ignored and shrugged off as a necessary pest. Despite this fact, there is an entire field of research for the insects, some dedicating their lives to aiding the knowledge of the declining bug population. This sentiment almost mirrors the story of Lily Melissa Owens, the protagonist in The Secret Life of Bees. Young and outcast, Lily lives a life of neglect and mistreatment before she and her caretaker, Rosaleen, make their getaway on a journey to Tiburon, South Carolina. Lily experiences…

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Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life Of Bees

In Sue Monk Kidd’s novel The Secret Life of Bees, the protagonist Lily Owens runs away from her home and father in Sylvan, South Carolina, in search for answers to her questions about her dead mother. Throughout her sojourn at the Boatwright house, Lily matures into womanhood in ways that she could have never grown in her hometown, but she also isolates herself from white culture by being introduced to this undiscovered world of black culture and to the idea that all cultures should interweave without…

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Sue Monk Kidd's Novel 'The Secret Life Of Bees'

Have you ever once thought about running away, running away to seek answers, to have freedom, or just to have a guide to life? This novel goes through a girl coming of age, learning what is right or wrong in the society of 1964, and facing life with a handful of guidance to figure out her future from a 14 year old girl's perspective. Sue Monk Kidd's novel “The Secret Life Of Bees'' explores racial injustice and abuse with real world issues within the book. Racism and injustice is demonstrated in this…

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