Stereotypes In The Secret Life Of Bees

In Tiburon Lily finds herself with August, the women who took care of her mother and knew the answer to Lily’s most asked question. When she and Lily finally have their conversation about her mother, August reveals the grand answer. August states “No, honey, she came by herself. ”(Kidd, 251) By the time August tells Lily the truth about her mother, Lily gets emotionally destroyed.

Working and cleaning as a child, Anne comes into contact with her first white supremacy, Mrs. Burke. Even though other blacks conform to the racist ways of the South and fear the whites, Anne’s attitude towards whites does not change. Even though Anne has never had a problem being herself around whites, her mother thought she should act in fear, as every other African American had. Toosweet asked,“Thats how you talk to white folks?” suggesting that Anne should use a different tone when addressing white people. At such a young age, Anne held the characteristics of all leaders during this time.

The Secret Life of Bees tells the story of Lily Owens, a motherless fourteen year old white girl raised by a cruel father, T. Ray, who is a peach farmer. At the center of Lily’s fourteen year old life, there is a horrible memory

The Cellar by Natasha Preston is about 16 year old girl named Summer who is the main character in the story. In Summer’s small town where there is no excitement ,something finally happens and it involves Summer. On one night Summer was kidnapped and was took to a cellar and to her surprise she isn’t the only one. Along with three other girls named Rose,Poppy,and Violet, who have been down in the cellar. All four of the girls know one thing they have to survive and that is to stay alive.

Also Lily started to care for people no matter black or white. She Cared for her mom to the Calendar sisters, Lily did not just judge people she also cared for everyone she met in this story. “For days I carried the notebook everywhere. I wrote constantly. A made-up story about Rosaleen losing eighty-five pounds, looking so sleek nobody could pick her out of a police lineup”(Kidd 135).

Lily barely knew her own mother, and T. Ray, her father, abuses her and could care less. Lily gets to experience the parent-child love from Rosaleen. Kidd asserts that the interaction between different races can lead to loving

Throughout her journey, Lily discovers the difficulty of dealing with discrimination through personal exposure of prejudice towards her. When Lily Overhears June and August Boatwright talking, Lily understands that the reason June is cruel towards her is due to Lily’s skin color being white. Lily is befuddled as she states, “I hadn't known this was possible—to reject people for being white” (Kidd 87). This was Lily’s first time experiencing racism, personally, as the racism of black people toward white people. The experience of being rejected as a result of her skin color angers Lily as she is a person with feelings, not a color.

Criminal intent is the committing of a crime despite the knowledge and awareness that such is wrong lawfully and morally. Crime is a constant in the novel The Secret Life of Bees. Nearly every mentioned character is a criminal based on the laws of the time: 1960’s. The story is about 14-year-old Lily Owens, who runs away with her black stand-in mother from her abusive father.

“A wonderful novel about mothers and daughters and the transcendent power of love” (Connie May Fowler). This quote reflects the novel, The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd because the protagonist in the story, Lily Owens, her mother have died when she was four years old and she didn’t feel loved by her abusive father, T. Ray Owens, until she met the Boatwrights family with the housekeeper, Rosaleen, and stayed with them. The Boatwrights family are the three black sisters who are August, May, and June. This novel took place in Sylvan and Tiburon, South Carolina, where Lily grew up and where she found the answer to her questions.

It doesn’t take a wizard to see Zach loves you. And every one of the Daughters loves you” (Kidd 242). August makes Lily feel better and clears her conscience about her mother. Later in the story, Lily gets confirmation she did kill her mother from T-Ray, but, because August talked to Lily, she was not completely distraught. In conclusion, August impacts Lily in a good way and helps her with her mom.

One of the themes presented by Sue Monk Kidd in, “The Secret Life of Bees” is pushing boundaries. In the book, Lily runs away from her abusive father and stays at a beekeepers house where she would be safe. This beekeepers house is a black family and while she stayed there and everyone was constantly pushing boundaries. The story relates to the article written by Nadra Kareem Nittle which was called, “How the Freedom Riders Movement Began”. This article was about a group of people called freedom riders traveling together to end the Jim Crow laws or other known as, racist laws.

The Secret Lives of People The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd, is an interesting story that connects human lives to bees. The story takes place in 1964 during the Civil Rights Movement and fourteen year-old Lily Owens leaves her abusive father and her home in Sylvan, South Carolina to go to Tiburon with hopes to find information on her mother. Throughout the story, Lily struggles with many internal conflicts and also meets several mother figures along the way.

In Sue Monk Kidd’s novel, The Secret Life of Bees, Kidd incorporates the literary technique of allusion to assist the reader in delving into Lily’s thought process. Furthermore, to incorporate allusion, Kidd compares the message Lily interpreted from the arrival of the bees in her room to the plagues God sent to the pharaoh Ramesses. Lily ponders: Back in my room on the peach farm, when the bees had first come out at night, I had imagined they were sent as a special plague for T. Ray. God saying, Let my daughter go, and maybe that’s exactly what they’d been, a plague that released me (151).

Throughout The Secret Life of Bees bees play a recurring role in the novel, repeatably being mentioned during the novel in epigrams before the start of each chapter and within the story itself. Unfortunately, on certain occasions the reason why bees are included in a certain part of the story can be unclear and confusing to readers, causing them to occasionally misinterpret the importance of bees throughout the novel. Regardless, the bees throughout play a very important role in understanding many of the themes and symbolism that Kidd included within the novel. In The Secret Life of Bees Kidd symbolizes Lily’s experiences and situations through the bees frequently present in the novel to show that seemingly different things can function in the same way.

Firstly, the different types of Rosaleen’s suffering endure for the remainder of her life. Then the various impacts of discrimination suffered by April and how it leads her to end her life. Finally, May surrenders due to the numerous sufferings in the world that drive her to take away her life. Ultimately, racial discrimination engraves a lifelong physical and psychological suffering in people. Therefore, no one deserves to go through such suffering, not even