Linda Sue Park

Sue Monk Kidd adopts many themes and uses many symbols throughout the book "The Secret Life of Bees." The book takes place in the 1960 's. During this time, the fight for Civil Rights was taking place, so racism played a role in the book. The main themes that developed were female power, prejudice, and forgiveness. The main symbols used were the bees, the black Mary, and the whale pin along with the photograph. During this time period, women did not have a say in much at all. Female power was…

Bees play an important role in Lily’s life,they guide Lily, accompany her, and drive her forward. For every important action Lily takes in the novel, bees and their products play a role: from realizing she is in love with Zach (when she licks honey off his finger) to realizing she loves August (when she lets the bees rest on her body), showing that she trusts him. The epigrams at the beginning of each chapter concern bees; the bees in Lily's room reach out to her and show her she must leave; and…

When looking through book titles, somehow people’s eyes just jump to a specific title without any rhyme or reason. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd was the title that jumped out at me. I knew that there is no way that the book is actually about the lives of bees. I wanted to find out what it really meant. I read that it was set in South Carolina and was about a 14 year-old girl named Lily. So I thought that I could comprehend it easily from a voice of a girl around my age. I could relate…

The Secret Life of Bees is an intense novel following the life of a young girl named Lily Owens. The suspenseful events throughout push the story to a dramatic yet expected ending. It includes a series of important characters, symbols and motifs, themes, and conflicts. Lily Owens is the protagonist and narrator of the novel. She lives a troubled life but views it blindly as decent living. She lost her mother at a young age and she now lives with her father, T. Ray, and nanny, Rosaleen. Lily…

begging the tween mistress who obviously hates being fused to her one and only daughter as much as she does to grant her freedom. Charlotte knows that the road will be difficult, but she obviously sees Sarah say yes, but she wants her “swearing it.” – Sue Monk Kidd, (31) because throughout her life, she has lost trust in white people after seeing her mother and her being separated from her father, never to be seen again. As Sarah is only an eleven-year-old girl, the promise is already nearly…

authors draw from their own personal memories when writing. Sue Monk Kidd is no exception. Kidd is a feminist and a writer-activist known for writing fiction reflecting the context of the civil rights movement in The United States. Combining the best aspects of fiction and broad conceptual ideals, Kidd used narrative as a tool for igniting social change. The significance of Sue Monk Kidd’s life, work, and legacy will last for years to come. Sue Monk Kidd was born and raised in the south, in the…

(TS) In Sue Monk Kidd’s novel The Secret Life of Bees, August Boatwright helps reunite her sisters and her community by using the faith in the Black Madonna as a way to improve the quality of their lives. (PS) The faith within the Black Madonna improved Lily Owens’ and the Boatwright’s lives because they had to find a spiritual mother within themselves. (SS) Since August practiced the philosophy of the Black Madonna, she tells Lily, “You have to find a mother inside yourself” (Kidd 288). (SS)…

In the novel, The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, the time period is set when the Civil Rights Act was just put into place. This time period affects the way Lily views, racism and her opinions on segregation and inequality. This novel discusses real world problems that happened back in the '60s and are even occurring to this day. Lily Owens lived at a peach farm in North Carolina with her abusive father and black housekeeper Rosaleen. When Rosaleen gets arrested and the abuse is getting…

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, demonstrates the primary character flourish throughout the novel and face realities in 1964 during the Civil Rights Movement. A fourteen-year-old girl named Lily Owens born on a peach farm in Sylvan, South Carolina, lives with an abusive father, T. Ray. When Lily’s mother died, her black nanny, Rosaleen, took on the role as her fill in mother. On Rosaleen’s way to obtain her voters card she is sentenced to imprisonment. After T. Ray had mentioned…

Sue Monk Kidd’s coming of age novel The Secret Life of Bees has many themes, a major one being that women are powerful. There is no lack of female characters, and each is strong in their own way, and as a community they are an incredible force, something the protagonist Lily comes to realize over the course of the story. In the opening of this story, Lily is in a society where women are not highly valued. This is implied through the times; the sixties wasn’t exactly known for the best…