Secret Life of Bees Outline
* Thesis: Love can be found in many different ways, no matter the color of your skin. In the novel “The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd, love is strongly shown between two young people of a different race, and motherly love. The main character sets out to find that love, but along the way she finds that love is not easy no matter which way you may look.
I. The primary meaning of the word "love" in Scripture is a "purposeful commitment to sacrificial action for another."
A. August teaches Lily about the kind of undying, universal, hidden love that exists everywhere in the world but which is actually manufactured by the Virgin Mary.
1. According to August, in order to feel the completeness stolen from her when her mother died, Lily must realize that she is loved by this Great Universal Mother.
II. Everyone, regardless of circumstance or color, needs a mother.
A. When Lily was four she accidently shot her mom. As she grows up that traumatizes her for the rest of her life, her father always told her that on that dreadful day her mother was coming back for her things and not her.
1. Lily’s goal throughout the novel is to understand her true mother. She does not understand what the presence of a mother would really be like, but she feels her mother’s absence constantly.
2. At some developmental milestones throughout her life, Lily deeply feels her lack of a mother. Though Lily fantasizes about a replacement mother in Rosaleen, she still yearns for the real thing.
B. Upon settling into her new life in Tiburon, Lily finds motherly love where she did not expect it.
1. The Boatwright sisters and the Daughters of Mary all love her with different styles, and she turns to them with different needs.
2. August, most of all, allows her to open up and cry to her as if she would to a mother.
III. Inter-racial love was very difficult during the 60’s. Segregation ended around 1964 but people’s opinion on inter-racial love was still segergated.
A. Love between
I. The primary meaning of the word "love" in Scripture is a "purposeful commitment to sacrificial action for another."
A. August teaches Lily about the kind of undying, universal, hidden love that exists everywhere in the world but which is actually manufactured by the Virgin Mary.
1. According to August, in order to feel the completeness stolen from her when her mother died, Lily must realize that she is loved by this Great Universal Mother.
II. Everyone, regardless of circumstance or color, needs a mother.
A. When Lily was four she accidently shot her mom. As she grows up that traumatizes her for the rest of her life, her father always told her that on that dreadful day her mother was coming back for her things and not her.
1. Lily’s goal throughout the novel is to understand her true mother. She does not understand what the presence of a mother would really be like, but she feels her mother’s absence constantly.
2. At some developmental milestones throughout her life, Lily deeply feels her lack of a mother. Though Lily fantasizes about a replacement mother in Rosaleen, she still yearns for the real thing.
B. Upon settling into her new life in Tiburon, Lily finds motherly love where she did not expect it.
1. The Boatwright sisters and the Daughters of Mary all love her with different styles, and she turns to them with different needs.
2. August, most of all, allows her to open up and cry to her as if she would to a mother.
III. Inter-racial love was very difficult during the 60’s. Segregation ended around 1964 but people’s opinion on inter-racial love was still segergated.
A. Love between