Lily Character Analysis

T. Ray physically, mentally, and emotionally abuses Lily to the extent that Lily believes in the burden he puts upon her. T. Ray is a very abusive father to Lily, doubts her dreams and makes her feel less of a person. Over time of the mental and emotional abuse T. Ray inflicts on Lily continues, she believes that he is punishing her for the death of her mother. The readers can infer that T. Ray has a horrendous amount of grief in his heart for the death of his wife; blaming someone for what happened. Closer to the end of the book, he is demanding Lily to come home. As Lily refuses to come home, he pulls out a knife and begins to call her “Deborah,” his late wife (295). He cannot bring himself to believe that things will be okay and get better. He does not want to lose the only thing he has left of Deborah. He lost his wife and has a child to take care of. He feels a sense of loss and does not know how to go on raising a child without his wife. In the end of all of this, he …show more content…
As Lily looks through the valuable memories of her mother, she finds the “black Mary,” a photograph. On the back of the photograph, written in her mother’s handwriting, is a city, “Tiburon, South Carolina, “ in her mother’s handwriting (43). Lilly continues looking through her mother’s things and finds “Tiburon, South Carolina” in her mother’s handwriting written on other things (43). Lily grows curious of the city and wanders why her mother had a fascination of this city. Lily talks to her nanny, Rosaleen about this city. Together they sought out to this mysterious place her mother left behind. On their expedition to Tiburon, Lily notices the same “black Mary” picture in a drug store. Lily observes that the “black Mary” her mother had was the same photograph as the one on the honey jar . The label on each jar read “Black Madonna Honey” (63). Lily realized in that moment that “there is nothing but mystery in the