Lily Owens In 'The Secret Life Of Bees'

In the beginning of The Secret Life of Bees, we see Lily Owens as a childish teenager. Lily lives in a racist southern town and runs away from her home to leave her abusive father and she is also in search of the truth about what happened to her mother. Throughout the book, Lily learns to be more confident and mature. The nature of her growth to a secure person is greatly affected by her relationships. These relationships force Lily to undergo difficult emotions, but also help her become more mature. Her relationships with August and May Boatwright particularly affect her.. When Lily first meets May, she describes her as ‘not altogether a normal person’. (page 69, The Secret Life of Bees) Lily and May become friends and May reveals new information about Lily’s mother. The reason for May’s abnormality was that May’s twin died when they were fourteen, and after that May had felt the pain of every tragedy in the world, making her very vulnerable and easily upset. In one of the later chapters of the book, May discovers some bad new which pushes her mental stability to the breaking point and causes her to kill herself. Lily is deeply upset by the death of one of the women …show more content…
Lily sees her as a confidante and mother figure, and August helps Lily in the darkest times of her life. Lily finally opens up to August about why she came to visit her and August reveals startling and upsetting information about Lily’s mother to her, and this leaves Lily in a difficult emotional place. During this time, August shows Lily that despite her difficult relationship with her deceased mother, she is very loved by the Boatwrights,The Daughters of Mary and Rosaleen. Through a stable relationship with August, Lily learns the importance of self-reliance and August and Lily’s relationship causes Lily to finally trust someone and let people into her life without fear. This makes Lily a more stable