In the novel The Secret Life of Bees, the author tries to reach out to the reader and send multiple messages with meaning behind them. One of the most important messages that the author tries to send to the reader is the importance of bonds between women, and the significance of a mother figure. When Lily’s mother Deborah dies, Lily no longer has a mother figure in her life to look up to until Rosaleen comes along. When Rosaleen becomes Lily’s mother figure, Lily looks up to her and builds a strong and lasting bond with Rosaleen, due to the absence of her mother. Rosaleen loves and cares for Lily, as she does the same.…
One of the main literary elements in Sue Monk Kidd’s Secret Life of Bees, is conflict. The author displays this conflict through racial prejudice, Lily Owens and her father, Terrence Ray Owens (T. Ray), and through Lily and her mother, Deborah Fontanel. This book is set in 1964, when African American’s had just gotten the right to vote. T. Ray and Lily lived just outside Sylvan, South Carolina (The Secret Life of Bees, page…
Lily Owens is lying in her bed watching bees squeeze in and out of cracks in her walls. She thinks about her mother, who died when Lily was a child. She also thinks about Rosaleen, a black woman who looks after her and her father, T. Ray. When the bees begin to swarm around Lily, she wakes T. Ray to show him but when he comes, the bees are gone. He threatens to make her kneel in grits if she wakes him again. Lily decides she will catch some bees in a jar to prove she was not making up the story. She starts to think about the day her mother died. She was packing hurridly when T. Ray comes home and they start fighting. Lily there was a gun, picking it up, and an explosion.…
Second Chances Amy Veloz Period 11 English III May 2015 Living in Killian Jones’ hometown wasn't exciting, or easygoing, or safe. And that is what frustrated him very much and made him upset...and surprisingly, he was also very scared. Killian would never confess to anyone that he was afraid, not even to himself. He worked hard at putting up a front of being tough. He made it seem as though nothing could bother him.…
He walked out of the classroom, with his hands crossed over his chest, not looking back at the fiery red face of Mrs. Wilson. Even though he didn’t look back he could feel her rage staring at him, along with everyone else in the classroom, as he silently walked to Principal Robert’s office.…
Stories have an extremely important effect on the lives and the characters in the novel entitled, The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kid. This book is about a young 14 year old girl named Lily Owens. She has to go through life knowing that she killed her mother and that her father loathes her. She runs away form home and breaks her friend Rosaleen out of the hospital. They finally find a home, based on the clues that Lily’s mother left behind, and moves in with a family that accepts her for who she is rather than what she has to do, she can express her individuality. She gets a different look at the world and can see how stories, discrimination and family dynamics are important and valued differently. The stories in this book have three major functions in setting the stage for a good novel. They are: stories can be interpreted in many ways, stories can help people escape reality, and stories can have a lasting impact.…
Lily Owens, who is the main character of The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd, is a courageous girl who overcomes many challenges throughout the novel. For one thing, when she is curious, she is determined to do anything. Another example is she is not afraid to twist up the truth for her needs. Lastly, Lily performs heroic acts throughout the story. Throughout the novel, Lily Owens demonstrates the meaning of courage.…
The Secret Life of Bees is a novel written by Sue Monk Kidd that was published in 2001. It is about a girl named Lily who runs away from home with her maid Rosaleen. They wanted to get away from danger and racism. In the house, Lily finds out secrets about her dead mother and tries to learn more about her. The story shows a lot of cruelty. When an author uses their writing to represent cruelty in a story, it can be helpful in contributing to the overall theme or message. The cruelty that occurs in the story is racism, and it helps develop the theme of anyone can overlook stereotypes. In the book cruelty is shown when the three men are harassing Rosaleen on her way to register to vote, and when Lily was afraid to tell anyone that she and…
Another theme that Kidd would like to share is truth. She understands that hearing the truth isn't what everyone wants at some points, but some people rather hear lies. The emotions are confusing some people would like to hide away then facing the facts. Kidd constructs a flexible and logical life for lily. She applies the love and the past of Lilys mother. She wants the readers to understand no matter how many people lie to you that the truth will always hurt, that the truth is the truth, and there's nothing anybody can do to change it. Kidd’s second idea is that she wants people to adapt to what is real.…
‘An ecosystem at risk is both vulnerable and resilient to natural stress and human induced…
The poet Maya Aneton once said “It [is] one of the greatest gifts [a person] can give [him or herself] to forgive. Forgive everybody.” It is difficult sometimes for people to forgive themselves for past issues or transgressions. The result often becomes an inability to exculpate others as well. However, if a person can seek forgiveness, then happiness will become more apparent in his or her life. In the novel The Secret Life of Bees, Sue Monk Kidd demonstrates how contentment becomes prevalent in a person's life through the characters Lily and June once they seek forgiveness. Lily, a fourteen-year-old runaway white girl, not only struggles to forgive herself, but her father, T Ray, and her mother for their wrongdoings in her lifetime. Similarly, June, one of the Boatwright sisters that takes in Lily when she runs away, strives to pardon her ex fiance and Lily’s mother due to the undeserved way they treated June in her past.…
I chose to analyze this quotation because it reveals how Lily regrets knowing about her mother even after her only goal was to learn more about her mother. Lily lived her life believing her mother always cared for her and would never leave her. However, when she realized that T. Ray was right when he said Deborah left Lily, this crushes her, which is why she regrets ever knowing the hurtful truth.…
The reality of appearances can deceive people and trick them into thinking that the best people are the worst, and the worst people are the best. In mind with that; reality of people versus their appearances shows greatly throughout the story The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. When the reader deciphers the question of appearances versus realities, they can see the differences between the reality of the characters, and the way that the characters appearances are portrayed by the townspeople in Kidd's book.…
“The Birds and the Bees”, If you haven’t given “The talk” you’ve probably received it. I remember my mom bought me The Birds and the Bees book from a yard sale and I was mortified that I was supposed to be reading it. Naturally, I pretended to read the book for a week and then tried to hide it away in my attic. At age 11, I wasn’t exactly and expert at hiding things so it was just thrown onto an open shelf in my attic. Little did I except my 8 year old sister to be going into the attic for any reason; getting up there requires being able to reach the pull hook on the ceiling then climbing up the 45 degree angled ladder. I heard a screech from the attic, I ran up and to find my sister sitting there with a horrified look on her face as if she just witnessed a murder. I have a look of shock on my face while I’m bombarded with questions, “What the heck is this? Why do we have this book? Why is this so graphic? I think I might have gone blind! What is this?”. She never let’s me forget about how much I traumatized her. Talking to kids about the taboo topics of sex, racism, and…
I wake up fine and dandy but then by the time I find it handy, To rip my heart apart and start planning my crash landing, I go up, up, up, up, up to the ceiling, Then I feel my soul start leaving, like an old man's hair receding, I'm pleading please, oh please on my knees repeatedly asking, Why it's got to be like this, is this living free,…