The Secret Life Of Bees Deborah Owens Character Analysis Essay

“I saw her running across the room. Running at him, yelling. “Leave. Her. Alone.” (Monk Kidd 7) In Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees, Deborah Owens is the most crucial character in the novel, which is set in South Carolina in 1964. Deborah’s choices and characteristics affect the protagonist of the novel as well as many other characters. In The Secret Life of Bees, it is Deborah’s value for all life, bravery and motherliness that influence other characters and make her the character who shapes Lily the most and makes her the most plot-opening character in the story.

Firstly, Deborah values all life. including the life of a mere cockroach (Monk Kidd 13). By not wanting the take the life away from even just a bug, it is evident that she appreciates every life on earth. Lily learns, “Once when he [T. Ray] stepped on a roach in the kitchen, he told me my mother had spent hours luring roaches out of the house with bits of marshmallow and graham-cracker crumbs, that she was a lunatic when it came to saving bugs.” (Monk Kidd 13) Deborah showing compassion toward roaches is what helps Lily realize her mother stayed in the honey house.

Secondly, Deborah
Her motherliness and want for what’s right is a major driving point in the story. Lily’s obsession with finding things out about her mother is what leads her to August’s house in Tiburon (Monk Kidd 43). Lily loves the idea of her mother so much that she leaves her home in search of more information on her. Lily keeps a box of her mother’s belongings “inside a tin box, buried in the orchard.” (Monk Kidd 14) She wants so badly to feel close to her mother that grasps tightly onto whatever piece of her she can get her hands on, She once even put cotton balls in her mother’s gloves and pretended Deborah’s hands were inside (Monk Kidd 14). If Deborah wasn’t Lily’s mother or never really cared for Lily, there would be no story. The plot wouldn’t go