The Secret Life of Bees Novel

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.

Lily

The Bees of the Hive

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.

The Cast of the Movie

Flamingo Pink Boatwright House

Beekeeping

Plot Summary

Chapter 1:

• Sets the stage 
• Speaks of the incident in which Lily accidently killed her mother when she was a little girl
• Talks about the love Lily has for her mother and her desire to know whether the love was once returned
• The relationship between Lily and her father, T. Ray, is revealed as well as how Lily handles herself in certain situations.  
• Starts setting off in Sylvan at the very beginning of the summer of 1964 during the Civil Rights era, which is an extremely controversial period for people of different races
• Lily and Rosaleen get arrested because Rosaleen stood up to white people.

Chapter 2:

• Lily and Rosaleen traveling to Tiburon, South Carolina

Chapter 3:

• Lily and Rosaleen make it to Tiburon
• Obtain the Boatwright sisters’ address
• Lily buys a newspaper to make sure that she and Rosaleen aren’t in it

Chapter 4:

• Rosaleen and Lily go to the Boatwright’s home
• August offers them a place to stay and work
• Lily discovers the wailing wall

Chapter 5:

• Lily and Rosaleen meet the other sisters, May and June
• They begin to learn more about May’s special condition and Augusts’ personality
• Lily begins learning to work for August
• May and Rosaleen start to bond
• Lily overhears June and August talking about her, they know she is lying
• August  takes Lily to the beehives
• August tells Lily about April
• Rosaleen feels like Lily doesn’t love her as much as she loves August

Chapter 6:

·         Lily and Rosaleen meet Neil and learn about his relationship with June

·         The Daughters of Mary are introduced to Lily and Rosaleen

·         They join in the ceremony and hear the story of the black Mary statue

·         Lily passes out and wants to touch the statue’s heart

Chapter 7:

• Lily meets Zachary Taylor
• Lily and Zach become friends
• Lily senses that June doesn’t care for her
• Lily and Rosaleen begin to settle in to life with the sisters, they have been there for two weeks
• June and Neil get in an argument about marriage
• Rosaleen moves into May’s room
• June and Neil get in another argument
• Zach gives Lily a notebook to write in

Chapter 8:

• Augusts’ birthday
• August talks to Lily about things that she loves
• August tells Lily how she came to have the black Mary statue
• Lily learns more from August about bees
• August tells Lily why her house is pink
• Lily goes with August to beehives to see the queen
• Lily goes with Zach to Mr. Forrest’s office and meets him
• Lily calls her father from Mr. Forrest’s law firm
• Lily goes to the black Mary in the middle of the night and touches the heart carved into her
• June begins to lighten up and gets into a water fight with the other girls
• Lily learns from May that her mother stayed in the honey house
• Lily has a dream in which her mother is a cockroach
• Zach and his friends throw a coke bottle at a man and get arrested while Lily is stuck in his truck
• Everyone except for May is told about Zach being in jail
• August and Lily go to visit him
• May finds out about Zach and goes to the wailing wall

Chapter 10:

• May commits suicide
• They all hold a vigil for May for four days straight
• August finds May’s suicide note
• Zach gets released from jail
• Lily and Rosaleen sleep in May’s room for a while

Chapter 11:

• Everyone in the Boatwright household goes into mourning for a few days
• Lily moves out of May’s room and back to the honey house
• Lily and Rosaleen get to experience Mary Day with the Daughters of Mary
• Zach kisses Lily and gives her his necklace as a promise that one day he will find her and they will be together

Chapter 12:

• Lily finally tells August the story of her mother and finds out that her mother had stayed there before she came back for Lily
• August tells Lily about her mother

Chapter 13:

• Lily becomes depressed and angry at her mother

• The Daughters of Mary finish their celebration
• August gives Lily a box of her mother’s belongings

Chapter 14:

• Rosaleen becomes a registered voter
• June agrees to marry Neil
• Lily overcomes here depression
• Zach gives Lily another notebook
• T. Ray comes to take Lily back home but she stands up to him and stays with the Boatwright sisters
• Lily is happy and loves all eight of her “stand-in” mothers

Listening to the Hive

Honey Cake

May's Wailing Wall

Vocabulary

Pentecostal- pertaining to any of various Christian groups, usually fundamentalist, that emphasize the activity of the holy spirit, stress holiness of living, and express their religious feelings uninhibitedly

"He did not care that I wore clothes I made for myself in home economics class, cotton print shirtwaists with crooked zippers and skirts hanging below my knees, outfits that only the Pentecostal girls wore."

Martha Whites- a brand of grits

"Martha Whites were a form of punishment only T. Ray could have dreamed up."

Pith helmets- helmets made of pith or cork and covered with cloth
"Pith helmets with netting, tools, and wax candles hung from nails near the front door, and a thin veneer of honey lay across everything."

Veneer- very thin layers of a substance strewn across an object

“Pith helmets with netting, tools, and wax candles hung from nails near the front door, and a thin veneer of honey lay across everything.”



Supers- the portion of the hive in which honey is stored
“’These are called supers,’ she said, setting one on the floor in front of me and removing the lid.”

Presumtuous- impertinently bold or forward

“I know it is presumtuous to compare my small life to hers, but I have reason to believe she wouldn’t mind; I will get to that.”



Perpetually: everlasting; continuing or enduring forever
“In the photograph by my bed my mother is perpetually smiling on me.”



Loafing: to idle away time
“If you see the bees loafing and lamenting, you can bet their queen is dead.”



Contemptible: despicable
“Inside, I felt small and contemptible, abandoned.”



Ignoramuses: extremely ignorant people
“We have reputations as ‘nigger lovers,’ which is how it is put to us, and when the ignoramuses ball up their notebook paper and throw it at Zach, which seems to be a favorite pastime between classes, Becca and I are just as likely to get popped in the head as he is.”

Bees in the Supers

Themes

·        Forgiveness: Lily’s mother leaves her and Lily has trouble forgiving her for it until August makes her realize that everyone makes mistakes; June realizes that she cannot hold a grudge against Lily because August was her mother’s maid; "People, in general, would rather die than forgive.  It's that hard.  If God said in plain language, 'I'm giving you a choice, forgive or die," a lot of people would go ahead and order their coffin." (Lily Owens) 

·        Universal love: August tells Lily, “..send the bees love. Every little thing wants to be loved.” Love is also present in the relationship between Lily and Zachary Taylor and Neil and June. The love of a mother figure, such as the Black Mary, was also a new concept for Lily because her father resented her and never showed her any love

·        Racism: Lily is naïve about racial problems until she stays with the Boatwright sisters. Then she comes to realize all of the things that racism causes and the way it affects a person’s way of life. Lily also realizes how she herself had some racial prejudice and how to overcome it; “Take my advice and call your aunt and tell her to come on and get you, even if she isn’t a hundred percent well. These are colored people here. You understand what I’m saying?” (Mr. Hazelwurst)

Honey, Honey Bread, Bees, Candles

Black Madonna Honey

Literary Analysis

Symbolism:

Bees:  When Lily captures the bees in her room one escapes from the jar, which represents Lily’s escape from her father’s grasp; the ways the behavior of bees relates to the real world which August explains to Lily (bee etiquette), also present when she thinks she hears her mother’s voice say, “Lily your jar is open.” Representing Lily’s discovery of freedom from escaping from her father; "Bees have a secret life we don't know about." (August B.) & "...the world is really one big bee yard, and the same rules work fine in both places: Don't be afraid, as no life-loving bee wants to sting you.”

Black Mary statue:  The statue of Black Mary represents female power and independence; “They called her Our Lady of Chains because she broke them.”

The Wailing Wall:  The wailing wall is representing all of the pain and fear in the world that is being felt by whoever decides to use it, usually May; “I felt somebody should personally thank every rock out there for the human misery is had absorbed.

Motifs:

·        Mary: August helps Lily realize her own power and independence through the Black Mary statue and their faith; "When you're unsure of yourself...when you start pulling back into doubt and small living, she's the one inside saying, 'Get up from there and live like the glorious girl you are.'  She's the power inside you, you understand?  And whatever it is that keeps widening your heart, that's Mary, too, not only the power inside you but the love.  And when you get down to it, Lily, that's the only purpose grand enough for a human life.  Not just to love--but to PERSIST in love." 

·        Anger: Anger is a very recurrent motif in this novel especially when it comes to T. Ray speaking and when Lily is thinking about her mother leaving her. June gets angry whenever she thinks about August being a maid for Deborah and Zachary feels anger when he thinks about racist people; “Sometimes, Lily, I’m so angry I wanna kill something.”

·        Struggle and suffering: this motif is prominent because each character feels their own type of suffering and faces their own struggles whether it be from racial tensions, grief, or sadness; “I’m tired of carrying around the weight of the world. I’m just going to lay it down now. It’s my time to die, and it’s your time to live. Don’t mess it up.”

·        Racism: one of the main motifs of this novel is racism because of the setting. It is also crucial to the novel because of Lily’s new life with the Boatwright sisters who are African American feel the impact of racial tension in the South; “In Sylvan we’d had a rumor at the first of the summer about a busload of people from New York City showing up to integrate the city pool. Talk about panic. We had a citywide emergency on our hands, as there is no greater affliction for the southern mind than people up north coming down to fix our way of life.”

·        Spirituality/Religion: religion is an important subject of this novel. Lily is introduced to the Boatwright’s modified Catholicism and she doesn’t quite understand it because she was raised in a Baptist church. It is also an important motif because the Daughters of Mary are centered on the religion June and August have come up with that incorporates their black Mary statue; “I live in the hive of darkness, and you are my mother, I told her, you are the mother of thousands.” (Lily speaking to the black Mary statue)

·        Death: this motif is prominent in the novel because it is the most important subject. Lily’s mother died when she was very young, May dies, June plays music that helps people’s souls pass on, and August tells Lily about what happens when the queen bees die; “Stories have to be told or they die, and when they die we can’t remember who we are, or why we’re here.”

Imagery is used in a very descriptive manner, everything that Lily observes is easy to understand and concise.

Recurring metaphors:

·        Lily’s mother as a roach; “She has roach legs protruding through her clothes, sticking through the cage of her ribs, down her torso, six of them, three on each side.”

Epigraphs:  At the beginning of each chapter there is a quote related to bees or beekeeping.

Spoon of Honey

Rhetorical Analysis

The author has a simplistic and descriptive style of writing.  She doesn’t use much jargon save words that pertain to beekeeping.  She often interrupts the present with stories or memories of the characters’ pasts.  Kidd uses a very personal and intimate tone in this novel to make the reader feel like they are in Lily’s place and experiencing her thoughts as their own.  She also uses figurative language to hint at life experiences in a coy manner which gives a certain type of whimsy to this novel.

Angel Gabriel presents Mary with a Lily

Honey and Honeycomb

Literary Merit

The Secret Life of Bees deserves a place in the literary cannon because it is a book that touches on subjects that were prominent in 1964 as well as in today’s society. This novel also is relevant because it gives insight into the life of African Americans during the Civil Rights era, and how its irrationality affected all of the people in this era. Another reason for this novel’s relevance is the fact that it offers a lot of wisdom about life, loving others, and learning to forgive. All of the themes of this novel are especially important for teenage students to understand, they are at a critical crossroads in their journey to adulthood and need wisdom to help guide them. This is also a reason for the novel’s longevity, besides the fact that teenage daughters especially can relate to Lily Owens and the feelings that she has.

Bees

Shyla's Reaction to the Novel

   When I first began reading The Secret Life of bees I thought Lily Owens was a very confused young teenager and that her father, T. Ray, was a depressing and abusive man. As I learned more about Lily I found her to be a very deep thinking character whose emotions confused her and I started to put myself in her place. I also felt the feelings she did because of the way the novel was written. Lily Owens is a very strong, determined character throughout the book and I loved that about her. During the middle of the novel Lily’s viewpoint on African Americans, imposed on her by her society and father, begins to change and was very crucial to the plot.
Then, when August and her sisters appeared in the novel, I began to adore the wisdom of August Boatwright and the compassion of May. For me, May was a character who was easy to relate to because I typically feel the pain and suffering of the world rest on my shoulders. So May’s part in the book was a very personal thing for me, and even though she commits suicide I found her inspiring. I think that Sue Monk Kidd was brilliant to include May’s character in her novel because it makes it easy for unique teenagers to feel like they have someone that relates to them. This is also the reason I found Lily’s character aided the novel. At first, my reaction to August was that she was a little bit confusing with her wisdom. Upon further inspection I figured out the true meaning of her words of advice to Lily and I thought they also applied to everyday life very well.
   My reaction to the end of the text was that it was very fulfilling. When Lily stood up to her father I was so happy because sometimes that is what needs to be done. I also loved it because a different side of T. Ray is revealed when he sees that Lily has her mother’s whale pin. The reader experiences T. Ray show a softer, loving side because Deborah’s pin causes him to recall an earlier time in his life when he was madly in love. My favorite part of this novel was the part where Lily and Zachary Taylor are talking about the future and he tells her that he’s going to come back for her after college. It was a very sweet and touching moment between the two and it further emphasized the point that racism affected everyone alive during this era. All in all Sue Monk Kidd’s novel was a touching and interesting story that I absolutely loved and would recommend.

Honey

Pollination

Tara's Reaction to the Novel

   This book was touching.  All throughtout the text I was able to relate to all the characters and their situations and I was able to make opinions about each character without confusion.  From the beginning I thought Lily was an unfortunate child and I felt sorry for the way T. Ray abused and mistreated her.  As I continued to read I felt that Lily had much more courage, determination and strength and was more daring than many adolescents her age.  She was caring and had a more open mind than other white people she interacted with.  She made it through all the lies and sad truths and was still able to see what she had ahead of her.
   The Boatright sisters seemed to be a force to be reckoned with.  They stood up for eachother and for what they believed in.  August was capable of being a friend and a mother and I admired that.  I was surprised at how easily she was able to understand the way people felt and the reasoning behind their actions.  It amazed me how she was able to sit and think about things before she jumped to conclusions; she was very wise.  June's coldness in the beginning bothered me and so did her reluctance to give Neil a chance to fix her past.  In the end, her strength to overcome her trials and to accept Lily as family gave me a change of heart.  I hated how May couldn't keep strife separate from herself and how she struggled with challenges that shouldn't have been hers to face.
   I hated that May had to die, but the ending made up for it.  I was filled with joy to know that Lily would get to stay with the people that had filled the holes in her heart and soul.  I had been afraid that T. Ray wouldn't allow Lily to stay with the Boatwright sisters and would be doomed to live with a father that refused to show love for her.  She needed love and in the flamingo pink house is where that love for her was.  I would recommend this book to everyone.  I don't believe there is a single person that wouoldn't benefit from reading The Secret Life of Bees.  There's something for eberyone hidden within this book.

Pollination