Preview

The Secret Life Of Bees By Sue Monk Kidd

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
578 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Secret Life Of Bees By Sue Monk Kidd
THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES by Sue Monk Kidd This heartfelt, captivating novel starts out with a very troubled fourteen year old girl named Lily Owens who lives with her father and their black maid Rosaleen. Her mother is dead due to an accident partially caused by Lily. As the story begins, Rosaleen gets thrown in jail and beaten up by three white men because all she wanted to do was to go into town and vote. Lily then decides it’s the time for them to run away to find the town Tiburon, South Carolina. This was the town written on the back of a picture of black Mary, which belonged to Lily’s mother.
Once they get there, a honey jar label with that same black Mary picture on it leads them to the pepto bismol pink house of August Boatwright
Continue Reading
View Writing Issues

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    Secret Life Of Bees Literary Analysis
    • 75 Words
    • 1 Page

    Secret Life Of Bees Literary Analysis

    One of the main literary elements in Sue Monk Kidd’s Secret Life of Bees, is conflict. The author displays this conflict through racial prejudice, Lily Owens and her father, Terrence Ray Owens (T. Ray), and through Lily and her mother, Deborah Fontanel. This book is set in 1964, when African American’s had just gotten the right to vote. T. Ray and Lily lived just outside Sylvan, South Carolina (The Secret Life of Bees, page…

    • 75 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life Of Bees
    • 536 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life Of Bees

    In Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees, August acts as the unorthodox religious leader of the Daughters of Mary and contributes to Lily’s character and growth. August proves to be a leader, and a positive influence towards Lily in every action she performs. She welcomes Lily, a white girl, into her house during the 1960s, a time when racial segregation was prominent. By doing so, August goes against the popular social views, and jeopardizes her reputation for Lily. August teaches Lily many life lessons such as love, hope, and the importance of religion. Because of August, Lily becomes stronger, and more aware of the society in which she lives in.…

    • 536 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Secret Life of Bees Literary Analysis and mini summary
    • 304 Words
    • 1 Page

    Secret Life of Bees Literary Analysis and mini summary

    In The Secret Life of Bees Lily, the protagonist deals with an unsettling amount of inevitable parental conflicts. In the beginning of the novel, Lily runs away from home to escape a abusive father who constantly mistreated her, to find a way to discover the true meaning behind her mothers death. The author makes parental conflict a trouble for Lily throughout the whole novel. Lily has the guilt of believing she accidentally killed her own mother. She is sourced of the information considering her deceased mother, given to her by August and T-Ray, her feeling of being unwanted, and her feeling of the need to feel the love of a family.…

    • 304 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Sue M. Kidd's The Secret Life Of Bees
    • 1010 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Sue M. Kidd's The Secret Life Of Bees

    Sue M. Kidd grew up in 1964 where prejudice and discrimination was still in full effect, in “The Secret life of Bees” a New York Times bestseller and major picture movie was written it had a lot of influences from her adolescents. Sue M. Kidd explains to the reader the reasoning for her naming the book “The Secret Life of Bees’ was because she practically lived with Bees when she was younger, the honey would ooze out from the walls onto the floor. “The Secret Life of Bees” was published on November 8Th,2001 and the major picture movie was released on October 17th, 2008. Sue M Kidd uses many literary devices throughout the book, in fact it is an expended metaphor describing how the Bees illustrates who Lily (the main character) is and what…

    • 1010 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    'Neighborhood In Richard Wright's Native Son'
    • 218 Words
    • 1 Page

    'Neighborhood In Richard Wright's Native Son'

    Richard Wright’s novel, Native Son, is set in Chicago and revolves around the life of Bigger Thomas, who lives in the city’s impoverished black neighborhood. While attending his job as a chauffeur to the Daltons, a prominent white family, Bigger attempts to carry their intoxicated daughter Mary to her room. Mrs. Dalton suddenly enters, and Bigger, fearing that she would find him, covers Mary’s face with a pillow and suffocates her to death. Afterwards, he throws the dead Mary into the furnace and destroys every piece of evidence from that night.…

    • 218 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Dialectical Journal For Secret Life Of Bees
    • 5592 Words
    • 23 Pages

    Dialectical Journal For Secret Life Of Bees

    Lily Owens is lying in her bed watching bees squeeze in and out of cracks in her walls. She thinks about her mother, who died when Lily was a child. She also thinks about Rosaleen, a black woman who looks after her and her father, T. Ray. When the bees begin to swarm around Lily, she wakes T. Ray to show him but when he comes, the bees are gone. He threatens to make her kneel in grits if she wakes him again. Lily decides she will catch some bees in a jar to prove she was not making up the story. She starts to think about the day her mother died. She was packing hurridly when T. Ray comes home and they start fighting. Lily there was a gun, picking it up, and an explosion.…

    • 5592 Words
    • 23 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life Of Bees
    • 747 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life Of Bees

    For the past month I have been engaging in a literature circle where my group and I have been reading and analyzing the book The Secret Life of Bees. The author Sue Monk Kidd conveyed the message that family is not defined by blood. In the beginning of the book Lily thought that she can only find a mother and daughter bond from her biological mother. She was extremely persistent and her one goal was to learn more about her mother and find out what life would have been like if her mother was still alive. She constantly feels her mother's absence and feels as though no one besides her real mother can fill this whole. As the story progresses we see Lily’s ideas change as she realizes that motherhood is much more than a biological relationship. She opens her heart to the people who love her and accepts them as her own mother-figures. Lily’s views…

    • 747 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    Ossian Sweet's Arc Of Justice
    • 1247 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Ossian Sweet's Arc Of Justice

    The book begins with Ossian and Gladys Sweet, an African-American couple, just buying their first house. This was a common event for many people during this time period, but what was so uncommon about the Sweets’ home was the neighborhood their new house was in. The house on Garland Avenue was on an all-white street, in an all-white neighborhood.…

    • 1247 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    How Does Hill Create a Sense of Isolation in the Woman in Black
    • 1269 Words
    • 6 Pages

    How Does Hill Create a Sense of Isolation in the Woman in Black

    The Woman in Black (TWIB) is a story about isolated people in an isolated place. Not least TWIB before she died. Janet Humfrye was isolated by her plight as a mother of an illegitimate child, which was frowned upon by society in the early 20th century when the story is set. Even the town’s people of Crithin Gifford were isolated on the marshes and almost described as though they lived in another dimension, another part of the world set apart from the rest of society. The sense of isolation runs like a thread right through the whole book. Hill does this by creating vivid pictures in the reader’s mind. She uses detailed descriptions or imagery with frequent use of metaphor, simili and personification techniques. She also uses short and effective phrases with repetition of words to help create the impact of the descriptions on the reader. Hill was a big fan of Dickens who also used this technique.…

    • 1269 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The Beekeeper's Apprentice By Laurie R.
    • 526 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The Beekeeper's Apprentice By Laurie R.

    The Beekeeper's Apprentice is a mystery novel written by Laurie R. King about Mary Russell, an orphaned fifteen-year-old who lives with her aunt in Sussex Downs. One day in April 1915, with her nose in a book, Russell almost walked on Sherlock Holmes, fifty-four and retired from his job in London, instead caring for his beehives and elaborate science projects. They quickly bond, and Russell assumes the position of Sherlock's student, and Sherlock the teacher. Mary Russell had a steadfast opinion of Holmes as too soft and undeserving of Holmes's companionship, but when she finally met the man himself, she found that he was kind and oddly likeable, and eventually nicknames him Uncle John. When Russell goes off to Oxford in 1917, she's well-versed in the detective skills of Sherlock Holmes.…

    • 526 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Themes In The Secret Life Of Bees
    • 537 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Themes In The Secret Life Of Bees

    The Secret Life of Bees is a novel written by Sue Monk Kidd that was published in 2001. It is about a girl named Lily who runs away from home with her maid Rosaleen. They wanted to get away from danger and racism. In the house, Lily finds out secrets about her dead mother and tries to learn more about her. The story shows a lot of cruelty. When an author uses their writing to represent cruelty in a story, it can be helpful in contributing to the overall theme or message. The cruelty that occurs in the story is racism, and it helps develop the theme of anyone can overlook stereotypes. In the book cruelty is shown when the three men are harassing Rosaleen on her way to register to vote, and when Lily was afraid to tell anyone that she and…

    • 537 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Kidd's The Secret Life Of Bees
    • 220 Words
    • 1 Page

    Kidd's The Secret Life Of Bees

    Another theme that Kidd would like to share is truth. She understands that hearing the truth isn't what everyone wants at some points, but some people rather hear lies. The emotions are confusing some people would like to hide away then facing the facts. Kidd constructs a flexible and logical life for lily. She applies the love and the past of Lilys mother. She wants the readers to understand no matter how many people lie to you that the truth will always hurt, that the truth is the truth, and there's nothing anybody can do to change it. Kidd’s second idea is that she wants people to adapt to what is real.…

    • 220 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The Secret Life Of Bees By Sue Monk Kidd
    • 2207 Words
    • 9 Pages

    The Secret Life Of Bees By Sue Monk Kidd

    In today’s world, people often make decisions without analyzing the reasons behind their choices. Because of this, people tend to overlook the key factors that helped them make their often life-changing decision. Although this may not be a bad thing, it certainly aids in contributing to the outcome of people’s lives. The author, Sue Monk Kidd, is an expert at depicting concepts that may influence individuals to make certain decisions. In the novel, The Secret Life of Bees, throughout her transformative journey, the main character, Lily Owens, is motivated by the concept of bees. For instance, bees are associated with a theme of being mother figures during Lily’s journey. Similarly, she uses bees as analogies to help her understand ordinary…

    • 2207 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    The Secret Life Of Bees Literary Analysis
    • 1679 Words
    • 7 Pages

    The Secret Life Of Bees Literary Analysis

    The poet Maya Aneton once said “It [is] one of the greatest gifts [a person] can give [him or herself] to forgive. Forgive everybody.” It is difficult sometimes for people to forgive themselves for past issues or transgressions. The result often becomes an inability to exculpate others as well. However, if a person can seek forgiveness, then happiness will become more apparent in his or her life. In the novel The Secret Life of Bees, Sue Monk Kidd demonstrates how contentment becomes prevalent in a person's life through the characters Lily and June once they seek forgiveness. Lily, a fourteen-year-old runaway white girl, not only struggles to forgive herself, but her father, T Ray, and her mother for their wrongdoings in her lifetime. Similarly, June, one of the Boatwright sisters that takes in Lily when she runs away, strives to pardon her ex fiance and Lily’s mother due to the undeserved way they treated June in her past.…

    • 1679 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Slavery by Another Name
    • 1774 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Slavery by Another Name

    The book begins by describing a typical family immediately after the Civil War and the first fruits of freedom. Throughout the book, we follow the life of one Green Cottenham as he tries to raise a family in the Deep South during the 1900’s. As the beginning of the 20th century, he is arrested in Columbiana, Alabama, outside the train depot in a completely spurious situation where initially it's claimed that he broke one minor law, and then later it's claimed that he…

    • 1774 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More

Related Topics