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.
Lily’s blame for accidentally killing her mother causes her to be unsatisfied with her life. Lily, with vague memories, is aware that “it was [her] fault
Sue Monk Kidd portrays this idea throughout the characters Lily and June with their struggles to find contentment in the world. However, this is an issue some people in the world flounder with. When a person has done someone wrong it is hard to overlook his or her actions and it inflicts pain upon the victim. It is not until the victim pardons the wrong doings of that person to find happiness with him or herself. In the end, the one forgiving benefits the greatest because the anger weighs heavily upon a person's soul. Once the anger dissipates a myriad of tensions is released and that person begins to move on with his or her life.Forgiving a lifelong grievance with someone releases the trigger within one’s self to begin the healing process of internal