Secrets

Sue Monk Kidd's first novel The Secret Life of Bees belongs to the bildungsroman genre of literature that portrays the journey of its young protagonist, Lily Owens to selfhood in the company of her black caregiver Rosaleen. Kidd through her narrative piece, reveals the power of black women, not only Rosaleen but also a group of beekeeping sisters and a Black Mary to construct a safe haven where Lily can survive amidst her crumbled life, eventually developing psychologically into a self…

The Secret Life of Bees is a novel about a 14 year old girl, Lily, living in a time of segregation. She grows up in the time of the Civil Rights act. After reading The Secret Life of Bees book, we watched and compared it to the movie. A movie based on a book wouldn’t follow the exact plotline. There were key differences, but the movie followed a similar plotline. There were extra things added into the movie, and there were things left out. The movie immediately begins with Lily talking about…

Secret Life of Bees: Motif In her novel, The Secret Life of Bees, Sue Monk Kidd includes many motifs to reinforce the story’s theme. The Virgin Mary is a recurring figure that enhances the strong, feminist plot. The motif serves as a guide for the character Lily as she goes on a journey to discover who her mother was and escape the abusive clutches of her father, while also representing hope and being a figure of feminism. As Lily escapes the miserable peach orchard, she is steered by a…

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…

The search for identity in The Secret Life of Bees Identity is defined as the “condition or character as to who a person or what a thing is; the qualities, beliefs, etc., that distinguish or identify a person or thing” (Dictionary.com). Each person is born with the ability to eventually find their true identity. In a world of societal pressures, this process can be a difficult journey. Through the influence of others and experiences a person’s identity begins to unfold. The identity is a…

In James Thurber’s The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, the author’s convulsive focus on the dynamic impacts of the abrupt settings, unreasonably complexes the fluidity of the story by misleading the reader on the current plot of Mitty’s life verses the settings conjured by his imagination in the story. Furthermore his use and examples of location, metaphors and imagery also leaves the description and development of the character to the reader’s imagination which while might make it easier to digest…

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…

and set herself free from her abusive past with her father, but Lily did not take the journey by herself. The honeybees of Tiburon, South Carolina showed Lily a new path to take. The bees have a great impact on Lily’s new life. In the novel, The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, the bees symbolize Lily in several ways. First, other worker bees do not know much about the queen; just as Lily does not know about her mother. The queen bee always stays in the hive and hides from other…

Walter Mitty’s mindset “The secret life of Walter Mitty” by James Thurber is a story about a man named Walter Mitty, who uses his creative imagination to fill colour in his dull life. In the world of his imagination, he is a hero, but in his real life, Mitty has low self-esteem. He wanted to be a heroic role-model because when he is driving a car, he thinks he is driving a navy hydroplane and gets back to real life when his wife says “Not so fast!”(Thurber 33). This exemplifies that he loves…

Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees is an exemplary novel which reveals the racism, sexism, and overall discrimination that unfolded in the south. The Secret Life of Bees transports the reader to the year of 1964 in South Carolina, where racial tensions were almost as high as the temperature and people were surrounded by oppression. During this humid summer a girl named Lily Owens runs away from her abusive father T. Ray, in search of her mother's past and the truth behind her death. After a…