The Secret Life Of Bees: A Literary Analysis

Adolescence, according to Webster’s Dictionary, is the transitional period between puberty and adulthood in human development, extending mainly over the teen years and terminating, legally, when the age of maturity is reached. As of the year 2014, about 65% of the global population was made up of individuals under the age of 18 (“U.S. and”). Both novels, Lord of the Flies and The Secret Life of Bees share a common theme of the absence of juvenility. The two novels display injurious childhood experiences demonstrating that the loss of natural innocence is caused by trauma, and leads to the breakdown of the characters. To most of the world, the idea of adolescence is unremarkable, but that is not the case. Trauma can cause a rapidly maturing youth, or in other words, premature adulthood. The major events in
And in the middle of them, with filthy body, matted hair, and unwiped nose, Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man’s heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy (Golding 202).
Ralph cries out of relief, stress, and grief. This is the last paragraph of the novel, and it leaves the reader feeling a sense of rescue and salvation for the remaining boys.
Both The Secret Life of Bees and Lord of the Flies have multiple circumstances where it is evident that the loss innocence is related to the subsequent downfall of the characters. Events in an individual’s early life can directly impact their adulthood, be it negatively or positively. Overexposure at too early an age is a major cause of the casualty of innocence and incorruptibility in today’s youth. Parents must be cautious in the way they raise their young, as a child with no guidance is lost at any rate. Childhood, after all, is the first precious coin that poverty steals from a