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Plot Overview
The Secret Garden opens by
The film follows Elizabeth, a woman who has been controlled by her mother in childhood, and by her husband Charles in adulthood. After losing her money, car, job and marriage, Elizabeth is ordered by her mother to return to the family home. To help her cope with her controlling mother and achieve happiness again, Elizabeth’s childhood imaginary friend Drop Dead Fred reappears. Following a series of conflicts with Fred, Elizabeth accompanies him into a dream world where she is able, with his help, to overcome her fears of her mother, and her husband, and of being alone. No longer in need of Fred, Elizabeth returns to the real world without him, and resolves her conflicts with Charles and her mother to lead a normal, independent life.…
Stories have an extremely important effect on the lives and the characters in the novel entitled, The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kid. This book is about a young 14 year old girl named Lily Owens. She has to go through life knowing that she killed her mother and that her father loathes her. She runs away form home and breaks her friend Rosaleen out of the hospital. They finally find a home, based on the clues that Lily’s mother left behind, and moves in with a family that accepts her for who she is rather than what she has to do, she can express her individuality. She gets a different look at the world and can see how stories, discrimination and family dynamics are important and valued differently. The stories in this book have three major functions in setting the stage for a good novel. They are: stories can be interpreted in many ways, stories can help people escape reality, and stories can have a lasting impact.…
Her story is filled with immense grief and pain, and the drastic consequences that result from the insanity of loving loved ones. The Plague is unforgiving and unbiased, as “wealth and connection are no shield” against it. Anna, a young mother of two, loses both children to the epidemic. She loved them ‘from the moment [she] reached down and touched the crown of [their] heads” and yet the place was ‘cruel’ and threw blows upon blows “so that before you have mourned one person that you love, another is ill in your arms”. The death of two young, innocent children is not only horrifying and heart-wrenching, but reduces Anna to “not really seeing anything. It is only the tragedy of losing her ‘babes’, husband, potential lover in Mr Viccar, that she turns to Elinor and begins to learn the arts of physick. An aspect of the time era this story was set in, was the people’s avid belief of medicine and herbs being the way of the witches. Instead of accepting Any and Mem Gowdie’s goodwill and knowledge that was “old before Mem Gowdie was even thought of”, they went to hire expensive physicians which ultimately give no help. Birthing places a woman in a fragile and vulnerable state, and yet “there were few who would do without Anys in their birthing room” despite many of them fearing that Anys was a witch. Although they hated the Gowdies’, ironically, when the death toll rises to where over two-thirds of the villagers lose their lives to the Plague, many people resort to witchcraft, believing the in the “ghost of Anys”. They place themselves through unnecessary punishment and pain, such as “boiling the babe’s piss” or passing a child “through the brambles”. Through desperation, flagellants also appear, desperate to please their God through self punishment. The villager’s lack of knowledge and unwillingness to accept views which lie…
In the novel The Secret Life of Bees, Lily the protagonist is a young girl growing up with an abusive father and a harsh environment. Lily wants to escape the reality that T-Ray (father) has shaped about herself and her deceased mother . Lily leaves her abusive household going into an unknown situation putting her beliefs and determination into the faith of her mother. Rosaleen, Lily’s…
‘The Violets’ by Gwen Harwood, illustrates a number of metaphors outlined between the differences of childhood and becoming an adult. Such metaphors counted are used within the context of the Violet flower, this being placed for beginning the further made metaphors about a child’s loss as they…
In the novel, “The Hunger Games” by Suzanne Collins, there are many memorable symbols used. One of these symbols is the Flowers. The reason this symbol is important is that it helps the reader to understand some of the main ideas of the novel. Suzanne Collins wants the reader to think about how there is always hope in dark times when in need.…
Inevitable conflicts with parents happen frequently in the lives of many adolescents. In the novel “The Secret Life of Bees,” a young girl named Lily Owens runs away from home, leaving her abusive father behind, on a hunt for more connections to her dead mother, Deborah. Kidd places obstacles of parental conflict for Lily throughout her whole novel. Lily battles with the internal conflict of the knowledge that she killed her own mother and the struggle in finding out the truth. The sources of her conflict with her dead mother include the information she receives from August and T. Ray, her sense of feeling unwanted, and her longing to experience love of a family. Sue Monk Kidd uses this conflict to show that during Lily’s strife to overcome her conflicts she finds herself and realizes that she already has a complete family. Kidd does this to relay a message to the readers so that they may understand that the mother Lily searched for lay inside of her after all and she is able to create her own power, proving the strength in women.…
Beauty deceives. Those who look the most beautiful end up acting shallow and judgmental, but people who appear unattractive at first glance turn out to show the greatest beauty. People cannot always define comeliness as a well-proportioned face, long, silky hair, or a slender body; it can come in the form of hard work, emotional strength, humor, or intelligence. The Samurai’s Garden, written by Gail Tsukiyama, features a theme of finding underlying beauty and splendor in people and objects typically viewed as ugly or unattractive.…
The narrator has a swirl of emotions and leaves the house, building on her jealousy for hope. She has no clue where she is going or what she is doing and then an idea hits her, she feels the urge to destroy the marigolds, to take away the hope they seems impossible and misplaced. One day the narrator stomps and smashes the marigolds the reality hits her, this had helped no one, destroying the hope of others, all that ruining the marigolds did was to bring the narrator to a realization ofher childish actions,that she was an adult, and should act like one. That she should create hope for herself and her family by being mature, sophisticated, and helping her parents, not destroy the hope that others had so dearly cared for. She realizes that the old lady had worked hard to nurture and grow her hope, her joy, her marigolds, that destroying them was wrong, and it brought no one else any hope, it just took someone's away. Her childish actions of rebellion had left her. The lines “ and they was the moment that childhood faded and womanhood began. The violent, crazy act was the last act of childhood. For as I gazed at the immobile face with sat and weary eyes, I gazed upon a kind of reality that is hidden to childhood. The witch was no longer a witch but only a lonely old woman who dared to create beauty in the midst so of ugliness and sterility. She had been born in squalor and lived in it all her life ow at the end of tent life she nothing but a falling down hut” communicate these…
In many works of children’s literature, it is common for parental figures to either not be present or to be removed from the story in some way, to allow the child protagonist to have their own ‘adventure’ without adult supervision. The Secret Garden is an example of this, but what stands apart from other children’s texts is the harshness of the situation that Mary as a character is immediately faced with. By the end of The Secret Garden’s first chapter, both Mary’s parents and any servants that provided care for her have been killed by an outbreak of…
When two weeks have passed she writes about her condition and mentions the baby. It made me think when it said "It is fortunate Mary is so good with the baby. Such a dear baby! And yet I cannot be with him, it makes me so nervous." When it emphasized the word cannot, I thought of postpartum depression, which is a condition woman get after they have a baby. Woman with this condition can get suicidal depressed and may even result to extremes of wanting to kill their own baby. Which is why i think the narrator is put in the isolated nursery, especially when she describes the room with the nailed down bed, barred windows, and then the gate at the head of the stairs, like the room is keeping her imprisoned. Also, when she asks her husband to move to another room he just tells her that she is doing good and that he does not want to renovate the house when their just staying for three months. Which is practically saying that he doesn't want to fix anything due to the fact the room is keeping her from doing anything crazy.…
In a narrative, such as a novel, motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, or literary devices that can help to develop and inform the pieces major theme. The Serial Garden is a short story written by Joan Aiken. The Serial Garden is about Mark Armitage, a boy who dwells in and out of magical worlds. In The Serial Garden Aiken uses various motifs to promote and instruct the books proposition. A motif is an element that appears numerous times in a literary work.…
The scene I will be discussing is from the Legend of Korra Book 4 Episode 9 "Beyond the Vines". In the scene, the main protagonist, Korra, confronts Zaheer, an airbender who poisoned Korra. Korra decides to visit him in prison, in order to confront him, to show him (as well as herself) that she is not frightened of him anymore. The entire fourth season focused on Korra’s fears and her struggles in finding her strength after experiencing something as traumatic as poison seeping into her body.…
The setting in the novel Buried Onions by Gary Soto is based of in Fresno California and the protagonist Eddie had a negative past as a child with his father not being there with that having a big effect in Eddie's life. He needed a father figure to touch him his way of life and how to respect and to be loyal. Eddie is now older and he lives by himself in a apartment in fresno he has lived in fear hoping he isn't a victim of murder. This has happened to hir cousin/brother jesus he was murdered and the killer was never found. Eddie was told rumors lies that it was angel he confronted him many times. And eddie has been ending up in a lot of trouble to find the killer. Eddie has always lived his life in fear with the gang violence and the gang…
A mother influences a child’s growth, specifically a daughter, and helps them towards independence and maturity. “ The Secret Life of Bees” written by Sue Monk Kidd is a novel about a young teenage girl, who runs away from her unloving and bitter father to search for the secrets of her dead mothers past. This novel allowed the author to share the importance of the truth and accepting the realities. Kidd also explores forgiveness, racism and feminine power. The author demonstrates that a family can be found where you don’t expect it, perhaps not under your own roof, but in that mysterious place where you find love. Although Lily has suffered through the loss of her mother and father, she has gained a new family. This new family provides her a place where they help her accept and overcome the difficult times in her life with guidance as well as a place where she’s able to develop new relationships of friendship.…