Sue Grafton

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…

The ending of "The Secret Life of Bees" was a fantastic ending, and it was fantastic because most, if not all of the loose ends of the story were all solved. To show all the resolved conflicts, the reader has to list the conflicts. One conflict was T Ray's return. The readers reading will and should anticipate when and if T Ray will return. Also, if he returns, will Lily have to leave. Another conflict was Lily and Rosaleen's charges, and whether if they will have to return, or will they be let…

In the novel, The Secret Life of Bees, the author makes me admire Lily the most. Since the beginning of the novel, she was very loving and curious. When she first saw the huge flock of bees flying above her in her room, her first response wasn’t to swat or kill the bees, but to watch them and try to figure why, how, and where the bees were flying to. She always treated everyone and everything with respect and care. When Rosaleen had just moved in, T. Ray was very abusive, mean, and very cruel to…

August Boatwright and Rosaleen Daise To me the most admirable characters in The Secret Life of Bees are August Boatwright, the oldest sister and who collects the honey from the bee boxes, and Rosaleen Daise, Lily’s mother figure and who goes to Tiburon with her. I think that August is one of the most admirable characters because of how compassionate and caring she is. “Some things don't matter much. Like the color of a house. How big is that in the overall scheme of life. But lifting a…

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 temperatures and people were surrounded by oppression. During this humid summer a young girl named Lily Owens runs away from her abusive father T. Ray, in search of her mother's past and the truth behind her tragic…

The Wailing Wall in Jerusalem When August was telling Lily about May she said, “Everything just comes to her- all the suffering out there- and she feels as if it’s happening to her” (Kidd 95). The Secret Life of Bees is a story about a girl named Lily who runs away from home to find a family called the Boatwright’s. They are cultured woman who are like mothers to Lily. May, who stands in as one of Lily’s mothers, has a tough time coping with life so she builds her own little Wailing Wall in her…