Searching for What Matters Most in Life
Searching for What Matters Most in Life The quotation, “Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakes” (Jung), summarizes both main characters’ journeys; Lily in the novel The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd and Sarah in the novel Left Neglected by Lisa Genova. Both novels show the difficult times in both main characters’ lives. Lily and Sarah begin the novels dreaming, looking and hoping for what could be until a life changing event leads them to a realization of what matters most and to see the importance of female relationships and female strength and how necessary it is for their personal growth and development. Lily’s strength helps her to escape her abusive father leading her to find a home with three women who grow to love and appreciate her and guide her to identify what matters most. Sarah who has always been hard working, is put into an unfortunate situation that tests her abilities and makes her focus on her relationships and what she wants out of life in contrast to what she has before the accident. In both novels pathos is created towards the main characters and in turn makes one think about what their wants are and the importance of these wants. The novel shows that a life changing event changes how a person looks at the world and makes one reevaluate what matters most. In The Secret Life of Bees, Lily, the main character, kills her own mother when she is very young. At fourteen she is abused by her father, T-Ray and dreams about the day she can escape him and find someone who loves her. At times she thinks she has found the love she longs for in her father until T-Ray loses his temper and punishes her by making her kneel on grits. She learns from T-Ray, “The truth is your mother ran off and left you,” (Kidd 39), unlike the story of her mother coming back for her that T-Ray had previously told her. These events lead her to question everything, her relationship with her father and also her mother, and what really happened that day. She
Cited: Genova, Lisa. Left Neglected. New York: Gallery Books, 2011. Print. Jung, Carl. "Quotes for Personal Growth and Self Knowledge ." Motivational and Inspirational Quotes. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 May 2013. . Kidd, Sue Monk. The secret life of bees. New York: Penguin Books, 2002. Print. Michaels, Jillian. "Maximize Your Life." Maximize Your Life Tour. Jillian Michaels. Budweiser Gardens , London. 17 May 2013. Speech.