The Secret Life Of Bees Book Report

Many people change throughout the course of their life, including their perspective, opinions, and beliefs. The Secret Life of Bees, written by Sue Monk Kidd, includes characters that go through this transformation. The story tells of a fourteen-year-old girl named Lily, who is raised by her abusive and brutal father T-Ray. One day she worked up enough courage and confidence to leave home, taking her nanny Rosaleen along on her journey. She travels to Tiburon, South Carolina looking for answers about her mom, leading her to live with a new and welcoming family, that will later change her life forever. From the beginning to the end of the novel, Lily changes in the way she acts, makes decisions, and her acceptance of new opportunities. Many …show more content…
After talking to the cashier about it, she learns that there is a lady that goes by the name of August Boatwright that is a local bee keeper and lives just down the street in a big pink house. After the short, but nerve racking journey to their house Lily and Rosaleen finally arrived. They entered the house and when asked about why they were here and their names, Lily replied with, “Rosaleen…Smith, and Lily…Williams,’ I lied and then launched in. ‘See, my mother died when I was little, and then my father died in a tractor accident last month on our farm in Spartanburg County. I don’t have any other kin around here, so they were going to send me to a home” (Kidd 73). In other words, Lily was starting to lie on a regular basis and she did not want them to actually know them for who they were because she did not want August to find out what they had done and send her back; she just wanted to be normal for a little bit. Furthermore, as her stay at the Boatwrights’ house continues, Lily responses to the question by saying, “Yes, ma’am, she went down head first. Caught her foot in the rug at the top of the stairs, the one my mother hooked herself ” (Kidd 76). Lily says this because she does not want to bring attention to Rosaleen’s attack because she did not want to have to talk about her breaking her out …show more content…
The Boatwrights are very religious people who pray before every meal and have a church group known as The Daughters of Mary, which August had organized. The Daughters of Mary honor the Lady of Chains, a statue that a slave found years ago, that filled them with fearlessness and ways to escape. One tradition that the Daughters have was to touch the painted red heart, that sat on the statue, every time they got together. After all the ladies had touched her heart, while June played music, Lily said, “I wanted to touch her vanishing red heart, too, as much as anything I’d ever wanted. I walked toward the black Mary with my hand lifted. But just as I was about to reach her, June stopped playing… Drawing my hand back, I looked around me…I am not one of you, I thought” (Kidd 111). Because June stopped playing her music, it shows Lily really wanted to connect with and touch the heart of Mary because it was an idea that she had never been introduced to before and she wanted to be a part of it because she knew that if this many people were involved and touched by it, then it must be important. Furthermore, every day Lily woke up she wanted to touch Mary’s heart, but she did not want to do it with people around. So, one night she snuck into the parlor where the statue was kept and touched Mary’s heart. As Lily held her hand there she said, “I just put my hand over my heart like we did in