‘Goodbye,’ I said, and there was a tiny spring of sadness pushing up from my heart.” Lily is aware that all of her memories are in that house and her town, but she takes the risk of never returning again to help the people she loves. This is a true act of heroism taking risks for the people who mean the most to you. In The Secret Life of Bees women are made to think that they are inferior to men and that men hold all the power. Lily’s father T-Ray treated women very unequally and often said that women had less opportunities and were not able to do all the things that men can do. Growing up her whole life with only T-Ray and no mother-figure has left Lily to believe that women really are inferior and not as capable as men. After meeting the daughters of Mary Lily started to no longer underestimate the power of women as she saw the example of Mary, who was a women that was able to do remarkable things. She also learns the power of women by meeting the boatwright sisters who are all remarkably strong. All the women in The Secret Life of Bees are inner heros in their own way and they all show the true…
After Lily decides to leave she had to find out where she can go, Lily thinks, “The town written on the back of the black Mary picture’...‘Or else she knew people there who’d cared enough to send her a nice picture of Jesus’ mother.”(Kidd 43). The first thing Lily thinks of when she knows she has to find another place to live without the problems her last housing arrangement had. She realizes that the people who gave her deceased mother the picture cared enough to send her the picture. Lily was most neglected to being cared for when she lived with T. Ray, so that is the first thing she strives for when changing her situation. When Lily first captures the bee she makes sure the bee is cared for with pollen and enough air for the bee to survive, therefore the bee has everything Lily didn’t have when living with T.Ray. Due to her neglect she decides to go to a place where she believes her mother was once cared for, which is Lily’s ultimate longing in…
And she throws them all away. One of Lily's biggest issues is pride, which we can blame for these failed marriage opportunities. She's too proud to talk to Rosedale, to let Bertha think that Selden came to Bellomont to visit her, to explain her side of the story regarding the Monte Carlo affair, or to marry a man like Selden who isn't dripping hundred dollar bills out of his pores. She can't even allow herself to be true friends with a caring woman like Gerty because she's too "dingy." Time and time again, Lily recoils from any sign of poverty (or anything that isn't elaborate or doesn't represent extreme wealth) as though it were physically contaminating.…
Being an striking theme in Secret Life of Bees, absence is shown through the novel in many different fashions. It is important to note that her mother's leaves her in a horrific manner, but her father leaves her in a more slow and painful way. Lily will never be completely alright after her terrible childhood, the absence of her mom will always carry a heavy burden on her back. Also, her father’s emotional cold heartedness and disappearance will forever leave her longing for parental love. Overall, her parents left Lily in a hole that she has amazingly dig herself out of with the help of many supporting actors. Abandoned by everyone that loved her at a young age Lily was certainly headed down the road of failure until she met the wonderful calendar sisters, and the Tiburon…
Mr. Hopper, a man who was a minister in a village in a town of Milford, somewhere in England. He was usually the person who would always be leading citizens, looked up to by everyone, including civil authorities. Of course, everyone knew Mr.Hooper in town. Every Sunday the whole village went to church. This Sunday, when Mr.Hopper got out of his house, his appearance was totally different than usual. The sexton who was ringing the bell so people could know the minister was there. He stopped ringing the bell when he saw the minister wearing a black veil, that covered almost his whole face except his mouth and his chin. Every single person was talking and murmuring about the minister because he was wearing the black veil. Everything was so mysterious.…
But this symbolism doesn't come across in the story, instead the exact opposite of there definition comes across. For instance, from the beginning of the story she talks about having three kids with her at the time of the ceremony which definitely means she=s not as pure as the lily portrays her to be. One of the other things that strike me about this reading is how she thinks of marriage. "She thinks of ropes, chains, handcuffs, his religion"(Walker pg.1). She uses the ropes, chains, and handcuffs as a way of letting the reader know that by getting married, she thinks that's going to weigh and tied her down. But then she contradicts herself by letting the reader know that after the ceremony the couple will be moving to Chicago to try and rebuild something better then what they have now.…
Lily Dale always held an eerie fascination for me. Growing up my best friend Kim and I would listen to stories from her mom about Lily Dale. She would tell us how every summer the “gypsies” as she called them, would come and settle in this small community to tell peoples futures. Lily Dale was only about a forty five minute drive from my hometown in Pennsylvania. I remember the first time Kim’s mom told us we were going on an adventure. Her and my mom were going to take us up to Lily Dale, we would pack a lunch to eat by the lake on the grounds and explore the town. Kim and I had all these images and expectation in our mind mostly from the stories we heard. I remember leaving early in the morning and driving the scenic route along the southern shore of Lake Erie. There were rolling…
While on the way to dinner with her husband Elisa finally realizes that she had been taken advantage of. She sees that the handy man has discarded her beloved chrysanthemums in the ditch on the side of the road. She realizes that the man used flattery of her and her flowers to get work. This realization makes her break down and cry. She then understands that she is doomed to her current role in society, a passive woman, and she hates it.…
The attitudes of both main characters in the story drastically change during the birth of Lily. The husband goes from frantic and excited to annoyed and stressed while the calm wife had quickly turned into and emotional rollercoaster with an evil witch riding it. This shows through their actions, the wife starts to demand a middle name for the baby immediately while the husband did not understand why they couldn’t wait until the whole…
Shirley Jackson’s “The Possibility of Evil” is a short story about a seemingly sweet little old woman, living in a small town with a house and prized bed of roses outside that has been in her family for three generations. The woman, Miss Strangeworth, is narrated as she goes through her normal Tuesday routine stopping to chat with the other locals. Upon doing so, she notices the solemn looks on some and speculates to herself about why the town has to consume itself with the possibility of evil. In an attempt to clean up the town, she writes several horrific letters to those who looked distraught, implying that maybe her letters are what upset the townspeople in the first place. After Miss Strangeworth dropped one of the letters at the post office one night, a local boy personally delivered it himself when he could not catch her before she left. The next morning, she received a letter looking similar to those she sends out. Opening the letter, she is shocked to read that she should look to see what used to be her roses. The central idea of this story is that evil could reside in any of us, even those you would least expect.…
The children of a fake reverie embark on a way which a sinister lie laid; their roots sought their eternal burying soil. And, they call to their minds the smoke of a clandestine and malevolent cloud, which erased from memory their first besetting…
Amanda Wingfield is the most prominent and dynamic character in the play. She is described by Williams as "a little woman of great but confused vitality clinging frantically to another time and place". In the play, Amanda appears to be a paranoiac as she was constantly worrying about her family's future, and coming up with seemingly foolish ways to 'secure' their lives. It is not until the end, that one sees her real self emerge, when she subtly revealed the angel-like beauty that was hidden in her all along.…
The house has a dark, mysterious feeling about it. The Nine Lives Causeway separates the house from the rest of the town. When high tide comes, it is impassable. Kipps describes the house as a “tall, gaunt house of gray stone with a slate roof” (Hill). The description of the house gives it a personality in itself. It has an evil presence, like a vengeful ghost. As Kipps walks around the house, he discovers ruins of what looked to be an old church. When he passes under an arch, a bird flies off. He says the bird was “an ugly, satanic looking thing” (Hill). The description of the bird foreshadows what he is about to see. He approaches the burial ground, and that is where he sees the ghost again. Kipps gets a better look at her this time. He said the look on her face “was as though she were searching for something she wanted…and which had been taken from her” (Hill). The house itself is very dark and mysterious. When adding the satanic looking bird, the ghost, and the seclusion, it gives the reader a supernatural…
or mission. On the other hand, the ghost could be the devil disguised in the…
Outside the hut, father and son sat before the dying embers in silence. Inside, the son’s young wife, Budhiya, was thrashing about in labor. Every now and then, a blood-curdling shriek emerged from her mouth and they felt their hearts stop. It was a winter night, the earth was sunk in silence and the whole village had dissolved into the darkness.…