The Secret Life Of Bees By Sue Monk Kidd

The Secret Life of Bees By: Sue Monk Kidd 1. Character List Lilly Owens is the main characters, narrator and the protagonist of this novel. She is fourteen years old and lives on a peach farm in Sylvan, South Carolina with her father who she calls T-Ray because they are not close and “daddy never fit him”. She also lives with their housekeeper Rosaleen. Throughout most of the novel, Lilly believes that she killed her mother when she was four years old during an argument between her and her father.

In the novel The Secret Life of Bees written by Sue Monk Kidd is about a white girl named Lily Owens who ran away at the age of twelve with Rosaleen her colored caretaker. When the two ran away they started over in there new town down in South Carolina. Something that was mentioned throughout the novel is how Lily wanted to be just like her mother because she is extremely curious about her. Lily’s mother died in a tragic accident when she was a kid so she was left with an abusive father, T-Ray.

The book “The Coming of Age in Mississippi” is a well written autobiography by Anne Moody herself. It tells the story of how black people were treated after the Civil War of 1861-1865. Although black people were given freedom through the 13th, 14th and 15th constitutional amendments, white people still made sure that the black people do not get an equal right that is why they made the Jim Crow laws; the racial segregation laws enacted in United States between the years 1876-1965. The book is divided in different chapters in Anne Moody’s life: childhood, high school, college and the movement.

In The Secret Life of Bees, the author, Sue Monk Kidd, alludes to the Freedom Summer Murders to create a conflict to start the rising action of the plot. In Mississippi in 1964, civil rights workers attempted to prepare and register African American to vote. In the novel, the radio broadcasters were discussing current events including the following: “...how police were looking for the bodies of those three civil rights workers in Mississippi…” (166). In the beginning of the story, Rosaleen heads to register herself to vote, but on her way, a few white men harass her about her skin color and her size. She then spits on one of the men, who in turn, start to beat her.

The Secret Life of Bees Narrative Fathers hate this girl because of this one simple trick! In The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, Lily killed her mother by accident when she was a child. So as she grew up, she did not have a mother figure. Her dad was abusive to Lily too.

This story takes place in Maycomb, Alabama during the year 1929. A young white girl, Mayella Ewell, tries to seduce an African-American man, Tom Robinson. Later she accuses him of raping her. She knew she would win the case because she was a female and the jury would lean to her side, considering it was an all white jury. Also, the Ewells were known for being the poorest family in Maycomb.

Lily didn’t know this as she had no pictures of her mother and had no idea what she looked like until after she ran away from her father's house and went to the Boatwright sister's house. There were three Boatwright sisters named June, May, and August and they ran a family honey bee company. Lily went to find the Boatwrights because of a picture she found in the box of her mother's stuff she found in her attic on the picture she found there was a black woman with the name of the town where the Boatwright sisters lived in the back of it. The Boatwright sisters lived in a town named Tiburon, South Carolina, which wasn’t that far from where Lily was first living until she ran away to live with them. After Lily finds out from August that she looks a lot like her mother she starts to realize why T. Ray treated her so badly and like she wasn’t even his daughter which is reinforced when he says “You look like her”(296).

Having a abusive father is hard to imagine for many people but main character Lily Owens is forced to live with one that she can not stand enough to even call him dad and even worse than that Lily's “father” tells her that her mother passed away when she was shot by Lily when she was 4 years old. But throughout the novel “The Secret Life of Bees, author Sue Monk Kidd describes how main character Lily Owens faces new and frightening situations but she is able to thrive under these circumstances and find a better life for her and Rosaleen. The story begins with a 14 year old girl named Lily Owens lying on her bed waiting for the bees to emerge from her cracked walls as they do most nights. She lives with her abusive father that she calls T-Ray and her black housekeeper Rosaleen on a peach farm in South Carolina.

Anne Moody’s involvement in the Civil Rights Movement is fueled by anger at the system she was raised to adhere to. The implications of black social rules reveal themselves in Emmitt Till’s murder, and the case spurs her interest in the NAACP, an organization banned in rural Mississippi. For Moody, Coming of Age in Mississippi means to see the world through the lens of a poor black woman from the rural South. She becomes an activist and aligns with the intentions of the greater movement, but can’t shake the feeling that part of the problem is being ignored. Generational differences, Ideas about race vary greatly by generation, and this contrast catalyzed the Civil Rights movement.

To start with Lily is raised by Roseleen, their black housekeeper. This isn’t all that uncommon for that time period, especially considering her MIA mother and her detached father. What is uncommon, however, is the fact that Lily runs away from her father and ends up at a house with three

Grace Gaeke Mrs. Allison Smith English 9 Honors 10 February 2023 The Effect of Love In Sue Monk Kidd’s novel, The Secret Life of Bees, the main character, Lily, represents a lack of love. From early on in her life, her father shows disrespect to her, and upon facing the racial injustice of the 1960s she flees to somewhere she believed her mother once lived to find the love she lacks. We should pursue love.

“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.

(Monk Kidd 299) Lily believes her life with the Boatwrights has offered her more freedom and will, and she wants to continue with her life with them, as she is more successful with the freedom she has with the Boatwrights. With the passing of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and Rosaleen of legal age, she decides she will register to vote for the second time. The first time, she was beaten by racists, but this time, “‘I’m gonna finish what I started,’ Rosaleen said, lifting her chin. ‘I’m gonna register to vote.’”

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd is a fictional, coming of age novel. Published by Penguin Books in August 2008, The Secret Life of Bees became a New York Times bestseller. With only three hundred pages, a story of self growth and self acceptance unfolds. This novel is considered a strong and empowering piece of literature. The novel depicts the life of a fourteen year old girl named Lily Owens in South Carolina 1964.

She finds herself in a small town called Tiburon in South Carolina, living with August Boatwright who was once her mother’s maid. After staying in Tiburon for a while, Lily calls her father, curious if he knows what her favourite colour is. They only spoke for a short period of