Thursday, April 19, 2012
A Look At the Author
Sue Monk Kidd was born and raised in Sylvester, Georgia. As a
teenager, she was influenced by Henry David Thoreau's Walden and Kate Chopin's
The Awakening. Kidd had always known that one day she would be a writer, but she was afraid of failure and the culture of the 1960s and decided to
become a nurse. She went to Texas Christian University where she
received a Nursing degree in 1970. She worked as a registered nurse throughout
her twenties. Not long after, she married Sanford Kidd, known as Sandy, and had two children, Bob and
Ann.
When she was 30 years old, Kidd became a freelance writer. She started off working
on non-fiction pieces about her life experiences. Kidd then went on to write about
Christian spirituality and then, in her early forties, feminist theology.
When Kidd
enrolled in a graduate writing seminar and visited writers’ conferences, her desire to write non fiction novels returned. In
1997 she began her first non fiction novel, The Secret Life of Bees.
Kidd drew her inspiration for The Secret Life of Bees from the honeybees
that lived in a wall of her house in Georgia while she was growing up. She
remembers the humming sound of the bees and the honey that seeped out of the
wall. She was able to use her experience to imagine a young girl lying in bed with bees sifting
through the cracks in the wall and the thoughts that may have surrounded her
life. The personal experience provided a background for the novel, but none of the characters in the book were drawn specifically from her own
life; however, she did draw from details and memories of her adolescent years during the 1960s for the
actions and mannerisms of many of the characters.
Character Analysis
Lily Melissa
Owens:
Lily is 14 years old and is curious about the life her mother had once lived before she had died ten years earlier. Lily is stubborn, curious, inquisitive; she is a deep thinker, a survivor and a girl who is searching for who she is and what her place in the world is. She loves Rosaleen, the Boatwright sisters, Zach Taylor and The Daughters of Mary, and she resents her father. Lily loves bees and honey and wants to be a beekeeper in addition to her dream of being a writer. Lily keeps a box with her mother's picture, white gloves and block of wood Black Mary on it; they are the only things she has that help her to picture her mother. Staying with the Boatwwrights helps Lily to blossom and discover the life she wants to live.
Rosaleen Daise:
Rosaleen is the servant/maid that T.Ray hired some time after his wife's accident. She is independent and stubborn and blunt. Rosaleen loves Lily as if she were her own daughter and also develops a close bond with May Boatwright later on in the novel. One of her stronger desires is to register to vote and she loves snuff. In trying to fulfill her desire she gets beat up by white men who oppose the Civil Rights Act. Rosaleen also had indirectly known that Lily's mother had left her, but because of the love Rosaleen had for Lily, she bring herself to break Lily's heart.
Terrence Ray (T. Ray) Owens:
T. Ray is a peach farmer who is rude, ill-tempered and spiteful. If he in any way loved Lily, he never showed it. His forms of punishment can easily be labeled as abuse. He resents Deborah for running away and leaving him and in turn resents Lily because she looks so much like her mother. He is a pessimist and didn't care to have Lily around him.
Deborah Fontanel:
Deborah was Lily's mother. She had married T. Ray because she was pregnant, but at the time, she had no longer loved him. August Boatwright had been her caretaker from Deborah's birth up until she was 19 years old. When Deborah became depressed, she left T. RAy and Lily and stayed with August for a few months. When she had finally gotten over her depression and realized how much she missed Lily, she went back home to get her; however, Deborah and T. Ray got in a fight and in trying to help her mother, Lily accidentally killed her.
August Boatwright:
August Boatwright was the Fontanel family's servant for many years until she inherited her grandmother's home and honey business; she moved into the house in Tiburon and became a beekeeper. August is very wise, thoughtful, independent, strong and loving. She loves Lily as much as she had loved Deborah, as well as honey, books, stories, the color blue and her family. She is the eldest of the Boatwright sisters and the leader of the Daughters of Mary. She uses honey on just about everything and painted the house a flamingo pink because May liked the color.
June Boatwright:
June is the second oldest Boatwright sister. She is skeptical of Lily and cold to her to begin with but ends up loving her. She is a teacher and she plays the cello for hospital patients and at funerals and in her spare time. She is stubborn and hard but has a soft and tender side to her. Her past experiences cause her to be guarded and keeps her from taking chances and living her life. She is in love with a man named Neil but she was afraid of marrying him until May and August were able to convince her to marry him later on in the text.
May Boatwright:
May is the youngest Boatwright sister who lost her twin April. Since the death of April, May had developed an emotional disorder that caused her not to able to keep the bad things in the world separated from her and had trouble coping. The only thing that could calm her when she heard upsetting things was to go out to the wailing wall she had created, write down her feelings and put the slips of paper into the crevices of the wall. Even killing bugs could badly upset May. She was simple, fun, loving, caring and compassionate. She eventually committed suicide.
Zachary Taylor:
Zach is strong-willed, sweet, fun, well-mannered, amusing, strong and caring. He is August's God son and is in love with Lily. He helps August with the honey business. He takes care of the hives and the tranport of honey. He is a football player who is good enough to be able to get into a college up north. He likes football, but his dream is to be an "ass-busting" lawyer. He also wants to be a part of the Civil Rights Movement so he later decides to be the first black person to go to the white high school in Tiburon.
The Daughters of Mary:
The Daughters of Mary are the people who worship Black Mary. Their religion can be descirbed as revised Catholic; they really had mixed different aspects of their life, such as Black Mary, with Catholicism. The Daughters of Mary is made up of August, June, May, Queenie, Violet, Lunelle, Cressie, Mabelee, Suger-Girl, Otis Hill, Neil and Zach. The Daughters meet regularly for services and events and are a family that sticks up for one another.
Lily is 14 years old and is curious about the life her mother had once lived before she had died ten years earlier. Lily is stubborn, curious, inquisitive; she is a deep thinker, a survivor and a girl who is searching for who she is and what her place in the world is. She loves Rosaleen, the Boatwright sisters, Zach Taylor and The Daughters of Mary, and she resents her father. Lily loves bees and honey and wants to be a beekeeper in addition to her dream of being a writer. Lily keeps a box with her mother's picture, white gloves and block of wood Black Mary on it; they are the only things she has that help her to picture her mother. Staying with the Boatwwrights helps Lily to blossom and discover the life she wants to live.
Rosaleen Daise:
Rosaleen is the servant/maid that T.Ray hired some time after his wife's accident. She is independent and stubborn and blunt. Rosaleen loves Lily as if she were her own daughter and also develops a close bond with May Boatwright later on in the novel. One of her stronger desires is to register to vote and she loves snuff. In trying to fulfill her desire she gets beat up by white men who oppose the Civil Rights Act. Rosaleen also had indirectly known that Lily's mother had left her, but because of the love Rosaleen had for Lily, she bring herself to break Lily's heart.
Terrence Ray (T. Ray) Owens:
T. Ray is a peach farmer who is rude, ill-tempered and spiteful. If he in any way loved Lily, he never showed it. His forms of punishment can easily be labeled as abuse. He resents Deborah for running away and leaving him and in turn resents Lily because she looks so much like her mother. He is a pessimist and didn't care to have Lily around him.
Deborah Fontanel:
Deborah was Lily's mother. She had married T. Ray because she was pregnant, but at the time, she had no longer loved him. August Boatwright had been her caretaker from Deborah's birth up until she was 19 years old. When Deborah became depressed, she left T. RAy and Lily and stayed with August for a few months. When she had finally gotten over her depression and realized how much she missed Lily, she went back home to get her; however, Deborah and T. Ray got in a fight and in trying to help her mother, Lily accidentally killed her.
August Boatwright:
August Boatwright was the Fontanel family's servant for many years until she inherited her grandmother's home and honey business; she moved into the house in Tiburon and became a beekeeper. August is very wise, thoughtful, independent, strong and loving. She loves Lily as much as she had loved Deborah, as well as honey, books, stories, the color blue and her family. She is the eldest of the Boatwright sisters and the leader of the Daughters of Mary. She uses honey on just about everything and painted the house a flamingo pink because May liked the color.
June Boatwright:
June is the second oldest Boatwright sister. She is skeptical of Lily and cold to her to begin with but ends up loving her. She is a teacher and she plays the cello for hospital patients and at funerals and in her spare time. She is stubborn and hard but has a soft and tender side to her. Her past experiences cause her to be guarded and keeps her from taking chances and living her life. She is in love with a man named Neil but she was afraid of marrying him until May and August were able to convince her to marry him later on in the text.
May Boatwright:
May is the youngest Boatwright sister who lost her twin April. Since the death of April, May had developed an emotional disorder that caused her not to able to keep the bad things in the world separated from her and had trouble coping. The only thing that could calm her when she heard upsetting things was to go out to the wailing wall she had created, write down her feelings and put the slips of paper into the crevices of the wall. Even killing bugs could badly upset May. She was simple, fun, loving, caring and compassionate. She eventually committed suicide.
Zachary Taylor:
Zach is strong-willed, sweet, fun, well-mannered, amusing, strong and caring. He is August's God son and is in love with Lily. He helps August with the honey business. He takes care of the hives and the tranport of honey. He is a football player who is good enough to be able to get into a college up north. He likes football, but his dream is to be an "ass-busting" lawyer. He also wants to be a part of the Civil Rights Movement so he later decides to be the first black person to go to the white high school in Tiburon.
The Daughters of Mary:
The Daughters of Mary are the people who worship Black Mary. Their religion can be descirbed as revised Catholic; they really had mixed different aspects of their life, such as Black Mary, with Catholicism. The Daughters of Mary is made up of August, June, May, Queenie, Violet, Lunelle, Cressie, Mabelee, Suger-Girl, Otis Hill, Neil and Zach. The Daughters meet regularly for services and events and are a family that sticks up for one another.
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