Essay On The Secret Life Of Bees

Personally I think that the title, The Secret Life of Bees, fits the story. The title means more than just bees. When the bees fly into Lily's room at night then escape, they are trying to tell Lily to escape from T. Ray. Lily figures out this and follows their message by leaving and going to live in Tiburon with the Boatwrights. The bees appear again when Lily starts helping August with the beekeeping. These bees are like hidden messages or symbols to Lily. They give her realization and remind her how much she is growing as a person.

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd is a novel that is narrated by the main character, Lily Owens. The novel begins with Lily being at home with her dad T-Ray. She doesn’t have a motherly since she shot her mom when her evil dad was abusing her. After having troubles with the law, she runs away from her city with her African American nanny, Rosaline. Her and Rosaline hitch-hiked to a South Carolina town, known as Tiburon. There they meet two sisters that would change their lives forever. As the reader starts every chapter, they will realize that every chapter starts out with an epigraph, which foretells the theme of every chapter. Every epigraph involves bees, which the author uses as a comparison tool for humans and their interactions with their surroundings.

The Secret Life of Bees is about a fourteen year old girl who lost her mother when she was four. Ever since her mother died, her father T. Ray, short for Terence Ray would abuse her. Rosaleen is the maid. She acts as a motherly figure toward Lily. Lily, the fourteen year old girl, and Rosaleen, run away to Tiburon, South Carolina after she finds a picture of her mother with Tiburon on the back. They find a pink house after they see honey with an exact same picture on it as one that Lily has. They find that three sisters, May, June, and August Boatwright live there. As they stay there, they feel more and more like they belong there. The movie has added and taken away some parts and scenes in the book, but also, there are some similarities.

There are plenty of great books published every year, however there are few that become classics. Classics are the few great books that everyone should read at least once. One of those books is The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd.

The Secret Life of Bees written by Sue Monk Kidd, is a Bildungsroman fiction novel published in 2002. This story takes place in Sylvan and Tiburon, South Carolina, where a 14-year old girl named Lily Owens lives a lonely and difficult life with her father, T-Ray. In order to escape her past life and haunting memories of her mother’s death, Lily and her caregiver escape to another town in South Carolina, where for the first time in her life she feels like she can call this place her home. Kidd develops the plot through internal and external conflicts of Rosaleen to illustrate how people’s lives are more complex than they appear.

In “The Secret Life of Bees” by Sue Monk Kidd we see a young troubled Lily Owens who longs for answers about her mother and that maternal love which she never received. Lily blossoms from a fragile hurt little girl into and strong and independent young woman with the help of the Boatwright sisters. The major themes shown throughout the book are a longing for maternal love and the power and strength of female community.

The setting of this novel is the south in the 1960s. This was a racially charged time particularly in the south. African Americans were making substantial progress fighting for their rights. Everyone should be educated about momentous historical events. Two significant events in the novel were the Jim Crow Laws and the Civil Rights Act, which both provide ample opportunity for a history lesson. The novel also educates students about different cultures. Lily lived with an African American family in the south, and the novel details many aspects of southern culture. This is a beneficial lesson because it can teach students about life outside of their own and allow them to feel and understand what may go on in someone else’s life. Because The Secret Life of Bees portrays a different time period, culture, and family life than tenth graders at Magnificat, it can be extremely

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd is a book discussing the internal strife of a young white girl, in a very racist 1960’s south. The main character, Lily Owens, faces many problems she must overcome, including her personal dilemma of killing her own mother in an accident. Sue Monk Kidd accurately displays the irrationality of racism in the South during mid- 1960's not only by using beautiful language, but very thoroughly developed plot and character development. Kidd shows the irrationality of racism through the characters in her book, The Secret Life of Bees and shows that even during that time period, some unique people, were able to see beyond the heavy curtain of racism that separated people from each

Written by Sue Monk Kidd the novel "The Secret Life of Bees" traces the life of a 14 year old girl searching for love and care. The story begins in a peach farm in Sylvan, South Carolina but travels toward and ends in Tiburon, South Carolina. The city of Tiburon unleashes many truths that lily has wondered throughout her life. The town brings her what she has been longing for since she was a child.

The Secret Life of Bees delineates an inspirational story in which the community, friendship and faith guide the human spirit to overcome anything. The story follows Lily Owens, a 14 year old girl who desperately wants to discover the cause of her mothers death. Her father T. Ray gives her no answers, which leads their maid, Rosaleen, to act as her guardian. Together, Lily and Rosaleen run away to Tiburon, South Carolina and find a welcoming community. It is in Tiburon that Lily learns many life lessons, including many about herself. In her novel The Secret Life of Bees, Sue Monk Kidd explores a theme of spiritual growth through Lily's search for home as well as a maternal figure.

Question 1- Kidd’s decision to write The Secret Life of Bees in the perspective of young Lily Owens allow the reader to deeply understand the internal struggles that have faced her from a young age. Through out the novel, Lily is looking for acceptance, understanding, and love, all things that she hasn’t felt for as long as she can remember. These feelings, or lack there of stem from the mystery and guilt surrounding the death of Deborah Owens, Lily’s mother. A young three year old Lily is presumably the cause of Deborah’s accidental death, and it’s something she’s never been able to get over. “This is what I know about myself. She was all I wanted. And I took her away” (Kidd 8). The direct look into the heart and mind of Miss. Owens allows the reader to become connected and invested into the story. This being said if her

In The Secret Life of Bees there are many new and old ideas that can and will always be applied in one way or another. Facing hardships at a young age and using that experience to make smarter choices and having better outcomes is a part of life, and this novel showed that. So of course, this book will always be required to be read by people everywhere because the content it holds will always keep the same effect throughout the

Every girl goes through a time when she is trying to find herself- find out who she is. Every girl tries to build a personality; a sense of self. She is filling in the puzzle of her with puzzle pieces that don’t have a determined shape. The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd is a book about this searching. The main character, a teenage girl, is going through this time when she is trying to find out who she is. In The Secret Life of Bees, this girl, Lily Owens, is living unhappily. Her mother was killed when she was very young, and her father is cruel. Lily decided she had had enough and runs away. The Secret Life of Bees is a story about a girl who is finding herself, finding out who she is and who she wants to be. This leads to a journey where she finds a place where she can thrive, and develop her sense of self.

The Secret Life of Bees takes place in 1964 South Carolina, and is shown through the perspective of a fourteen year old girl named Lily owens. In the book you read about segregation, grief, guilt, self-doubt, abuse, love, and forgiveness. A conflict in The Secret Life of Bees is Lily overcoming the past, and forgiving her mother along with herself. Lily holds back a lot of unexpressed emotions growing up due to an accident in the past that she barely remembers.

In The Secret Life of Bees the most prominent theme is racism and prejudice because of the relation it has to the current world issues. The novel displays racism and prejudice very clearly so that the reader can imagine what it must have been like. The year that the novel takes place, 1964, is a major contributor to the validation of the way racism is portrayed. In the South, where the novel takes place, racism is still poignant today, while not as noticeable and less accepted as well as less admitted the reader can see why it would have been a problem back then. One can also see the segregation in society that is obvious to anyone and thoughtlessly accepted. These points provide vital information to understanding of the main characters, Rosaleen.