Thelonious Monk

In Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey, Catherine Morland, the protagonist is a young naïve girl who is not a very good judge of character. She falls in love with a man much older than her, named Henry Tilney. Henry enjoys Catherine’s ignorance and educating her of things she doesn’t know. This essay will examine a passage from volume two, chapter nine wherein Henry finds out Catherine has been accusing his father of murdering his mother. Through the use of satirical tone, the implementation of odd…

Wallace’s analysis of Northanger Abbey focuses on the reader’s relationships with the narrator and the author. To highlight this relationship, Wallace chooses to concentrate on the character of Henry Tilney. More specifically, Wallace shows how Henry Tilney’s satire relies on reductive generalizations of other characters, particularly female ones. Wallace then connects this trait of Henry’s to Austen’s tendency to reductively generalize her readers and manipulate her reader into becoming an…

The Friar is a perfect example of a religious figure who fails to conduct their job and follow their vows in the correct manner. The Friar said that “he was qualified to hear confessions” (1.222), and that “he had special license from the Pope” (1.224). When the people confess to the Friar an easy penance is given, but only when “he could hope to make a decent living” (1.228). This means that in order to receive forgiveness by the Friar the confessor will have to give the Friar a nice gift, or a…

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…

‘’ People who think dying is the worst thing don 't know a thing about life’’ (Sue Monk Kidd).It means that even by living and going through life, things aren’t always as they seem like living with someone else’s death can be more painful than dying. Authors generally write books to convey messages, teach life lesson or to demonstrate the social problem depending on the era the book is based on. Sue Monk Kidd and Harper Lee are the authors who were able to transmit lessons and messages through…

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…

There are many secret meanings to words and things all throughout The Secret Life of Bees. In this novel, the title relates to the book in a way that might take the readers by surprise. The bees have a secret life outside of making honey, it’s a life humans just don’t understand. A bee hive represents people working together. The hive is overseen by the queen, which acts as a mother to the bees. When the queen bee dies she can be replaced, even though all the bees are lost without her. If…