Sue Monk Kidd

by the good people” (Martin Luther King, Jr.). This quote by Martin Luther King, Jr has proven to carry throughout history and possibly well into the future as seen in the novels, Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks, The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, and The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. Each author wrote a unique novel, with one thing in common, the main characters, along with the group of people they identify with, are oppressed by a higher authority that takes their lives for…

Mentorship and friendship can be topics of needed discussion; they’re found in The Secret Life Of Bees as well as Of Mice and Men. Sue Monk Kidd delivered a stronger message about friendship/mentorship in The Secret Life Of Bees that Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. First off Lily, the main character in The Secret Life Of Bees, didn’t have a parental mentorship and Kidd delivered that as a strong point pertaining to what it means to be a mentor. To clarify: “‘I expect this out of boys, Lily- you…

Race is equally destructive and unifying. When two races have opposing views, a conflict emerges leading to the destruction of a community. However, when two or more races learn to live together in harmony, it leads to the grand unification of all. Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees is a novel written to discuss the prevalent issues surrounding the civil rights movement through the narrative of a misguided, white, fourteen year old girl who felt marginalized by society. Kidd’s novel focuses…

information about her mother. Lily accidently shot her when she was little. She is trying to figure out more about that event and events leading up to that day. Lily's father,T.Ray, is no help either. She meets the Boatwrights and everything changes. Sue Monk Kidd uses many symbols throughout the novel to help readers understand her themes. In The Secret Life of Bees, the author uses the symbols of water, Mary, and photographs to teach Lily and the readers important lessons about life. In the…

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…

certain groups of people have been shaped. In Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees, such racism is displayed…

“The Secret Life of Bees” is a novel about a young girl on an adventure to discover her lost mother, find love and develop extreme courage. Sue Monk Kidd does a fantastic job on writing about the feelings of the unknown and emphasizing what is great in life, instead of dwelling on the bad things. She punctuates that a family can be found where you would least expect it. A family is not just the people who live under the same roof, but perhaps may be people who share a common adventure or love…

“The whole fabric of honey bee society depends on communication-on an innate ability to send and receive messages, to encode and decode information” (Kidd 165). This quote shows one similarity that bees and humans share. And most people don’t think about bees and humans having anything in common. However, if you look at the facts they actually have a lot of similar qualities. And using facts and comparisons, the author incorporates this main idea into the book. What the author is trying to…

“practice of true community involves responsibilities and actions that do not come naturally to us,” can convey that community is something that has to be earned by trust and respect and not only by willingness. In The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, the novel takes place in the mid-1960’s, where the protagonist Lily is living with T-Ray, her emotionally and physically abusive father, and Rosaleen, an African American housekeeper who was seen as a mother figure, as she struggles with a…

equally destructive as it is unifying. When two races have opposing views, a conflict emerges leading to the destruction of a community. However, when two or more races learn to live together peacefully, it leads to the grand unification of all. Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees highlights the prevalent issues surrounding the Civil Rights movement through the narrative of Lily Owens a misguided, white, fourteen year old girl who felt marginalized by society during the Civil Rights Era.…