Summary: The Secret Life Of Bees

Novel Notes

1.Essential Information- The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Fiction Civil Rights Movement2002
2.Authorial Information- August 12, 1948-present Graduated from Texas Christian University with a B.S in nursing in 1970United States2014 Oprah Book Club Selection, The Invention of Wings2010 Homecoming Award, Oklahoma Center for Poets and writers, Oklahoma State University at Tulsa2006 South Carolina “The Order of the Palmetto” Award, the state‘s highest civilian honor, bestowed by the governor2005 Winner, Quill Award in general fiction, The Mermaid Chair2004 Winner, Book of the year in paperback, The Secret of Bees2003 Winner, SEBA Book of the year, The Secret Life of Bees2003 Finalist, Book of the year for fiction, The Secret ofBees2002
Finalist for the 2003 Book Prize in South Africa, The Secret Life of Bees2002 Nominee, the Orange Prize (England), The Secret Life of Bees
3.Setting- Sylvan S.C-Tiburon, S.C. summer of 1964“ T-Ray and I lived just outside Sylvan SC population 3,100. Peach stand and Baptist churches, that sums it up” (pg8) This describes the town is small and what it’s like “Tiburon was a place like Sylvan , minus the peaches” (pg65) this compares and contrasts the two towns
4.Characters- Lily Melissa Owens -The novel’s protagonist and narrator. Lily is a fourteen-year-old white girl born on the Fourth of July in 1950. When she was four, she accidentally killed her mother, Deborah. Along with her abusive father,T. Ray, whom she cannot call “Daddy,” she lives on a peach farm in rural South Carolina. Isolated and insecure, Lily fears that she lacks all femininity and imagines that her mother is her guardian angel, watching over and loving her from beyond. Lily loves and trusts Rosaleen, a black housekeeper who helped raise her, and she finds the racism so prevalent in the south confusing. Over the course of the novel, she grows into a loved and loving young woman, who sees beyond skin color.
August Boatwright -A middle-aged black woman who welcomes Lily into her home.
August lives in a pink house in Tiburon, South Carolina, with her two sisters, May and June. Together, May, June, and August are known as “the calendar sisters.” August has chosen not to marry because she does not want to give up the autonomy of her independent womanhood. August works as a beekeeper and honey/beeswax manufacturer on a 28-acre farm she inherited from her grandfather. By selling honey, she supports herself and sisters, as well as Lily and Rosaleen, once they come to stay at her house. August is a warm and loving lady, skinnier than Rosaleen but still larger-than-life to Lily. As a young woman, August attended school and worked as a teacher, then she became a housekeeper in the home of Deborah, Lily’s mother, when Deborah was a child
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Terrence Ray (T. Ray) Owens -Lily’s father. A peach farmer, T. Ray was once passionately in love with Lily’s mother, to whom he was married. After his wife left him and later died, he became a bitter and resentful man. He abuses and punishes Lily by making her kneel on dried grits, making fun of her attempts to better herself through reading, and refusing to offer her any signs of love. T. Ray takes out his general resentment and bitterness on Lily, the product of his lost love.
5.Theme- The Secret Life of Bees demonstrates the irrationality of racism by not only portraying black and white characters with dignity and humanity but by also demonstrating how Lily struggles with—and ultimately overcomes—her own racism. Kidd moves beyond stereotypes to portray whites and blacks with the multifaceted personalities that we find in real life. 6.Plot- Lily, a fourteen-year-old, lives alone with her father in Sylvan, South Carolina.
T. Ray, her father, is abusive and does not believe her story about the bees. Her nanny and housekeeper, Rosaleen, believes Lily but also thinks Lily is foolish for trying to collect the bees in a jar. Lily recalls her very last memory of her mother, Deborah, who died when Lily was a small child. Lily thinks that she played a horrible part in Deborah’s death. Lily accompanies Rosaleen into town, where Rosaleen intends to register to vote. Instead, a group of racists harass Rosaleen, who winds up getting arrested for affronting them. T. Ray picks up Lily at the prison and tells her that the men who accosted Rosaleen will most likely kill her. This news understandably frightens Lily,particularly as Rosaleen is the only person in her life who truly loves Lily. Lily notices that the bees have escaped from the jar she put them in, which leads her to have an epiphany: she needs to run away.Lily finds Rosaleen at the hospital, where Rosaleen has been taken after being beaten up by the arresting police officers. Together, Lily and Rosaleen hitchhike toward a town (Tiburon, S.C.) that Lily has found written on the back of a picture of a black Mary that once belonged to her mother. In Tiburon, Lily learns that the black Mary picture comes from the label of a honey maker in town. Searching for this honey maker, she comes across the bright pink house of August Boatwright and her sisters. August
invites Lily and Rosaleen to stay, although Lily makes up a false story to explain their needs. Lily meets the honey farm helper, Zach, a African American boy on whom she develops a crush. August urges her to open up about whatever led Lily to end up in Tiburon, but Lily worries that she will be sent back to Sylvan if the truth comes out. Lily asks May if she ever knew anyone named Deborah Fontanel and learns that she has. With this, Lily receives absolute confirmation that her mother once spent time at the Boatwright house. Lily is simultaneously eager to find out more and anxious about exposing her true identity as Deborah’s daughter. Lily fails to find a chance to speak to August. One morning Lily goes to Augusts’ room to wait for her. When August arrives, Lily tells her the truth of her life, of how she ended up in Tiburon and of how she killed her mother. August admits that she has known Lily’s true identity all along and corroborates Lily’s worst fear. Feeling betrayed and upset, Lily begins to mourn for her mother. Days later, after she has recovered from her grief, her father arrives at the Boatwright house. Though T. Ray is angry and violent, Lily finally has the strength to confront him about the past and to call him “Daddy.” August convinces him to let Lily stay in Tiburon.
7.Literary Devices Imagery-Rosaleen dragged the footstool in front of the set and sat down , so the whole thing vanished under her” (pg 20) this is significant because of saying she’s fat, she goes in detail and describes her wait. Symbol-The bees “ I tapped the glass even laid the jar on its side, but those crazy bees stayed put ( pg 28) this is significant because it resembles lily being trapped in her home and doesn’t know how to escape Simile-“but the bees remained there! Like planes on a runway not knowing they’d been cleared for takeoff” (pg28) this is significant because it compares the bees to real life.
8.Style Notebook Sue Monk Kidd Style of writing is informal she writes in first person and she writes in a personal narrative telling her own story about her life and what happened.
9.Historical Context “Today July second 1964.... The president of the United Sates signed the Civil Rights Act into law in the east room of the White House..”

Work Cited
http://www.lyceumagency.com/sue+monk+kidd.asx