The Secret Life of Bees

”I look to a day when people will not be judged by the colour of their skin, but by the content of their character.” – Martin Luther King Jr. (Reference). In the novel, The Secret Life of Bees written by Sue Monk Kidd, the protagonist of the story, Lily Owens narrates the novel in the first-person, describing events she experiences from her unique perspective and retelling the stories told by others in the same sort of manner. Throughout this novel, Lily witnesses a lot of violence, in the forms of Racism, Physical Abuse, and Emotional Harm towards other people in the novel, as well as herself. Firstly, when Lily and Rosaleen walk through the small town of Sylvan, Rosaleen gets an irrational amount of racist remarks from the towns three racist…

The Secret Life of Bees is a well-acclaimed bildungsroman and historic novel written by Sue Monk Kidd about the protagonist Lily Melissa Owens, and her growing personal independence, her expanding knowledge of the world, her revelation about the family in the past, and her spiritual journey. The entire novel was written in first-person angle about Lily’s experiences and thoughts, focusing largely on the spiritual aspect; nonetheless, Sue Monk Kidd did also elaborate her thoughts about the issue…

How Many Themes Does The Author Use? Many! In the novel, The Secret Life of Bees, Written by Sue Monk Kidd, the author tries to thoroughly convey many themes towards the readers of the book. In this book, the author Sue Monk Kidd goes in depth on the irrationality of racism, and how many people think that people of colour are vicious, or just useless human beings without a purpose, without actually giving any thought about it, and just saying whatever pops into their heads. The author goes into…

The Secret Life of Bees is set in a time zone. It’s set in 1924 in South Carolina. A lot of things happened in 1924, one of them is the Racial Integrity Act. No one likes black people in this book. I will prove it to you: So Rosaleen is Lily’s maid, she is black. Rosaleen was in jail because she spit at a group of white people while trying to get in to vote. On the way to jail, there was a green pickup that was following them and every time that they got close to the police car, they’d honk the…

In the book “Secret life of bees” an emotional historical fiction book written by Sue Kidd, Lily wants her mother more than anything in the world, But her mother is gone, so Lilly is trying to find information about her mother and where she went and Lily try's to find a new family. Throughout “Secret life of Bees”, Lilly is struggling to get over her mother’s death, but 3 african american women show Lilly that family can be found when least expected and love can be found in strange and wondrous…

experiencing the world it is crucial for a child to have a grown figure in their life to guide them. In the novel The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, Lily Owens is a fourteen year old girl whose mother died in an accident when she was four years old. Since her mother's death, Lily has been living with her father, T. Ray, and Rosaleen, a black women whom T. Ray “[has] pulled...out of the peach orchard”(Kidd 2) to pick up responsibilities around the house that Lily’s mother had taken care…

Secret Life of Bees: Motif In her novel, The Secret Life of Bees, Sue Monk Kidd includes many motifs to reinforce the story’s theme. The Virgin Mary is a recurring figure that enhances the strong, feminist plot. The motif serves as a guide for the character Lily as she goes on a journey to discover who her mother was and escape the abusive clutches of her father, while also representing hope and being a figure of feminism. As Lily escapes the miserable peach orchard, she is steered by a…

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd is a novel takes place in 1964 down in South Carolina. A teenage white girl, Lily Owens, and the black woman who raised her, Rosaleen, broke out of jail and fled to Tiburon, South Carolina to escape her past. Throughout the book there are events that shape her: Lily lying about her identity, when she finds out about her mother, and when her father finds Lily. Lily and Rosaleen arrive in Tiburon after running from the police because of a situation that…

Sue Monk Kidd's first novel The Secret Life of Bees belongs to the bildungsroman genre of literature that portrays the journey of its young protagonist, Lily Owens to selfhood in the company of her black caregiver Rosaleen. Kidd through her narrative piece, reveals the power of black women, not only Rosaleen but also a group of beekeeping sisters and a Black Mary to construct a safe haven where Lily can survive amidst her crumbled life, eventually developing psychologically into a self…

Sue Monk Kidd adopts many themes and uses many symbols throughout the book "The Secret Life of Bees." The book takes place in the 1960 's. During this time, the fight for Civil Rights was taking place, so racism played a role in the book. The main themes that developed were female power, prejudice, and forgiveness. The main symbols used were the bees, the black Mary, and the whale pin along with the photograph. During this time period, women did not have a say in much at all. Female power was…