Abuse. Abuse is a shapeshifter. It plays tricks on the victim, mocks them, and makes them feel crazy. It affects the way people look at them, because of the decisions they make from it. In Colleen Hoover’s novel, It Ends With Us, the protagonist Lily Bloom is raised by her abusive father. This traumatic experience deeply influences the way she perceives herself and the people around her. Through her journey into adulthood, we see the impact of childhood trauma pander on her adult relationships and personal growth. As Lily is talking to Ryle she states, “I'm angry with my father for hitting my mother, and for making her think she deserved it. I’m angry with her for not standing up for both of us when we needed her most. I’m angry with myself …show more content…
This quote encapsulates the influence Lily’s father’s violence had on her and how it shapes her perspective on relationships. The quote portrays Lily’s realization that the childhood trauma she faced has defined her character in adulthood. Additionally, as she is in a conversation with Ryle, Lily says, “Fight or Flight. That’s our natural instinctual defense when we sense danger. But when it comes to abuse of any kind, one or the other isn’t sufficient. You have to do both” (Hoover 387). This quote highlights the importance of being aware and prepared to take measures to protect oneself from abuse. It provides insights into the mindset that Lily has shaped and her approach to relationships in the …show more content…
There’s no shame in saying I’m not the person I want to be. But there is shame in not facing who we really are” (Hoover 88). This quote shines a light on the importance of self-awareness– traits that Lily develops as she begins to confront her past traumas. Through her journey, we see how her father’s abusive behavior affects her perception of what love is supposed to look like, and how it influences her relationships with others. In addition, while she and Ryle are having a discussion, Lily mentioned to Ryle, “Just because someone hurts you doesn’t mean you can simply stop loving them. It's not a person’s actions that hurt the most. It’s the love. If there was no love attached to the action, the pain would be a little easier to bear” (Hoover 197). This quote speaks to the complex emotions that come with loving someone despite their harmful behavior. Lily’s father is the person who caused her the most pain, yet she still struggles with letting go of the love she has for him. This emotional complexity is a testament to the impact of childhood trauma on adult
Lily's creativity, activated by religious observance, allows her to be more creative. Later on in the passage, when Lily describes her outward expression, she notes that “[She] wanted to cry, but in the next instant, [she] wanted to laugh” (Kidd 71). Through the use of juxtaposition, Kidd carries out an image of Lily about to sob until she suddenly starts chuckling. By using the diction of “cry” and “laugh,” two words that completely differ in emotion, Kidd shows that the religious statue made her recall events of her past, truly making her analyze the type of person she was. Religion allowed her to have the trait of being self-aware allowing her to forgive herself for her past and move on because she knew that the religious statue could see good in her.
Lily's childhood was traumatic, as her father abused her mother, which has much to do with her staying in an abusive relationship. Lily and Ryle get married, and soon to follow, Ryle begins to regularly abuse Lily out of jealousy, anger, sadness, and his problems. When Lily loses hope and trust, she turns to her past boyfriend, Atlas Corrigan. Atlas was a boy
Lily’s idolization of her mother is shown in how she describes Deborah’s belongings. A photo, which she see’s her mother's beautiful, gloves that Lily holds as if it were actually hers, and a photo of the black Mary which she keeps close. Right before Lily finds out T. Ray was right in saying Deborah left them Lily says she never believed him and she wants to prove him wrong. Characters with flaws are a lot more sympathetic and likeable to the reader instead of the perfect flawless unrealistic ones. Kidd got the reader to understand these flaws with how August tried to explain the situation to Lily, “All she did was cry for a week.
”(Kidd 256). Lily is a very deep character who holds a lot of guilt, sadness, and hatred over herself for what happened to her and her mother. But as she grows more mature and finally learns the truth she knows she has to accept it for what it is. She's able to work it out herself and realize there is a place for her in the world. She never was able to accept who she was until
Lily’s mother was stripped of her limits by Lily’s father and her sense of independence was gone. As Lily’s mother said, the more she accepted her husband's apologies, the more her tolerance for the abuse went up, which ultimately resulted in Lily’s mother being somewhat of a villain while her father was alive. Lastly, Lily’s dad plays the role of an antagonist perfectly as he shows the reader what a negative force looks like. Lily continuously shows the reader of the book the violent temper and the mental and physical abuse that they had to encounter with Lily's father.
Her father, whom she loves, never shows any affection for her, and she has reason to believe that her mother, whom she so desperately wants to have loved her, abandoned her before Lily accidentally killed her. This complicated relationship to love leaves her without a clear idea of whether love can be a positive force in life at all, and she reaches the extreme, negatively charged opinion that the fiery passion of love destroys the world. Later in the novel, when Lily learns that love is not only about rejection and longing, her opinion of love softens a great deal, although she never recants on these poignant, passionate
Lily remembers being very close to her mother, and Lily was only four years old when her mother died. Lily was really depressed and mad at herself because she knew that she was the reason that her mother died. This quote states that “Lily is sustained by her wit and latent strength of character but at the same time by a profound need to make sense of powerful and confusing memories concerning her mother, Deborah, who died when she was four years old”(Monk Kidd). Years later when she was working in the peach stand, T-Ray came out and told her that she didn’t kill her mother but that her mother ran away and abandoned her. Lily says that “I lay in bed and thought about dying and going to be with my mother in paradise.
Lastly, Lily finally builds up the courage to stand up to her father. She does this by saying, “I said I’m not leaving” (296). For Lily’s whole life, she was blamed for her mother’s death especially by her father. He is a terrible father to her because he mentally and physically abuses her, and makes her feel
In the second chapter of, The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, the relationship between Lily and the people in her life, as well as, her understanding the society she lives in, becomes further explained. T-Ray brings Lily home from the police station, infuriated since Lily is questioning why they are not trying to save Rosaleen as well. T-Ray becomes worried that Lily will try and get Rosaleen out herself, so he tells her to stay at home and warns her not to leave the house. After seeing how Rosaleen stood up to the people who weren’t treating her fairly, Lily does the same, which leads to him trying to hurt her physically. Since he fails to hurt her physically, T-Ray tells her the reason as to why her mother was packing the day of her
Ryle Kincaid is portrayed as an obsessive and controlling partner in his relationship with the main character, Lily. Throughout the novel, Ryle displays several controlling behaviours, such as monitoring Lily's movements and interactions, making decisions for her without consulting her, and displaying jealous and possessive behaviour. He is also shown to be emotionally manipulative, using guilt, and fear to control Lily's actions and thoughts. In addition, Ryle's obsession with Lily is portrayed as all-consuming, causing him to become fixated on her to the point of neglecting other aspects of his life. Ryle does not accept her past and tries to control her present and future, which in the end causes emotional and mental distress to Lily, and the suffering he causes is not only limited to Lily but also to the people who love her.
“That’s when I knew I would never find a better friend than Zachary Taylor. I threw my arms around him and leaned into his chest”(Kidd 135) Lily starts to judge people for who they are not what they look like. She gets to know more people other than Dismissing them right away. “Lily, I like you better than any girl I have ever known, but you have to understand, there are people who would kill boys like me for even looking at girls like you.”(Kidd 135)
Lily’s negative encounter strengthened her compassion for others who are regularly the targets of bigotry. At the point when
August's unconditional love and acceptance aid Lily in healing from her traumatic background, giving her the courage to face her fears and
“ There is no such thing as bad people. We’re all just people who do bad things.” ( Hoover, 17) I think as much as lily wanted to believe that sentence that ryle had once said to her she had enough of the pain and heartbreak he caused her: “It stops here, with you and me. It ends with us.” ( Hoover, 361) Lilly wanted nothing more than to break the vicious cycle that she and her mother Once fell into.
Lily, the main character in this novel is an insecure girl due to not only girls at school, but also her father, T-Ray, and his lies about her mother. By not having a motherly influence, lily didn’t have the example of a fine woman which is usually learned from girls’ mothers She even contemplated on going to an all girl school, in which it would teach her to be quote in quote “proper’. Rosaleen, as her housekeeper didn’t necessarily have a motherly influence on Lily, thus causing a lack of confidence in the teenage girl. This didn’t help the situation that Lily is haunted by the lingering thought of her mother’s death. In the end she ran away with her housekeeper Rosaleen, and to the only place she knew of, the