essay topic for secret life of bees

The Secret Life of Bees

By sue monk kidd, the secret life of bees essay questions.

What are some of the ways that bees serve as symbols in Lily's life?

a) Bees symbolize Lily's mother in a number of instances throughout the novel. In Sylvan, Lily feels her mother's presence when swarms of bees enter her room. Her mother's name, Deborah, literally translates as "bee." She follows the path of her mother to Tiburon and finds herself on a honey farm.

b) Bees model human society. Once Lily begins her beekeeper training with August, she quickly learns the ways in which a beehive models the human world. Lily learns to send the bees love, to act like she knows what she's doing, and to avoid angry outbursts--all reasonably good lessons for life.

c) Bees, like Lily, need a queen or a mother figure in order to function. At the beginning of the novel, Lily uses the memory of her mother as this figure. Lily sometimes depends on Rosaleen to fulfill this role, and once in Tiburon, Lily mainly counts on August. Eventually, she turns to all eight of her Tiburon "mothers" to fulfill this need in her life.

Why does Lily feel the need to carry around mouse bones with her?

Answer: Lily finds the mouse bones under her bed when she is storing her mother's belongings. Therefore, Lily makes some odd connection between the mouse bones and the sentimental day on which she learned of her mother's love for her. Lily is in an emotionally heightened state, and she therefore displays some seemingly irrational behavior. After Lily finishes babysitting the mouse bones, she determines that she may have just needed to nurse something. But she might have intuited that the bones could be from a mouse Deborah once saw. In addition, the bones could symbolize Deborah's dead body.

How does Lily's idea of a mother change throughout the novel?

Answer: In the beginning of the novel, Lily associates the idea of "mother" only with a legal and biological connection between a woman and her child. She displays this definition when she dreams of Rosaleen adopting her and becoming her "real mother." But Lily's relationship with her biological mother is based on memories and uncertainty. Lily spends the majority of her childhood attempting to put together the missing pieces in her mother's life. Such curiosity drives Lily to travel to Tiburon. Lily experiences feelings of anger, pity, and grief when she learns the true story of her own mother.

Along the way, Lily also recognizes Our Lady in Chains as the mother of all, including her. She looks to Mary as a mother who brings about the inner strength inside Lily.

Finally, Lily is able to connect the term "mother" to the eight women in Tiburon who have pledged their love, time, and resources to ensure that she has the best life possible. Now, a mother in her mind is someone who takes up the role of a mother.

What does the symbol of Our Lady of Chains provide for the Daughters of Mary?

Answer: The Daughters of Mary, as a group of black women in the South in the 1960s, have clearly been exposed to their share of discrimination. The Boatwright sisters have attended college, but they have not really been able to find appropriate jobs outside of the black community, except for domestic positions within white households. The women feel the societal chains that bind them to a specific status position. The story of Our Lady provides women with hope for advancing their lives regardless of the "chains" that hold them down. Rather, they realize their ability to harness their internal power to enhance their lives.

What are some examples of characters suffering from the "burden of knowing"?

Answer: Lily feels terrible pain when she learns the truth about her mother temporarily leaving her behind. Lily feels that she would rather go back to the point in her life when she could just wonder about the truth, given that the truth hurts her so much. She is forced to move forward with this new information anyway. When she sees the photograph depicting her as a baby interacting with Deborah, however, she then realizes her mother loved her. Suddenly, she is hurt again, but in a new way because she feels a great loss due to her mother's death, and she realizes even more strongly how her own killing of her mother has caused this loss.

May feels a great burden from perceiving the pain of the world. She is weighed down when others are hurt. She does her best to alleviate the pain through rituals like putting notes in the wailing wall. Her family attempts to shield her from knowledge that will hurt her further. But when she does learn the truth about Zach, the burden becomes too heavy, for she also learns what everyone else thinks about her frailty, and she ultimately kills herself.

August, for her part, feels the burden of knowing that Lily's story is false, yet August is willing to shoulder this burden in patience until Lily is ready to talk.

How does Lily's concept of race evolve throughout the novel?

Answer: Lily begins the novel having a close relationship with Rosaleen, her black housekeeper. Still, she does not consider white people and black people to be equal. When she arrives in Tiburon, however, she realizes her own prejudices. She discovers that she has believed that she did not believe that a black person could be as smart as she is. Her idea was disproved once she met August. She also is angry when June discriminates against her for being white. She begins to understand discrimination and begins to be able to empathize. Then, when Lily falls for Zach, she is overcome with curiosity and confusion that she could be attracted to a black man. Yet, she soon realizes her deep and lasting feelings for him and sees him for who he is. Despite their love, Lily learns that they cannot truly be together because of the racial divide between them, and she comes to understand the equality of people as well as the curse of racism. When she is fully accepted by the Daughters of Mary and fully appreciates the Black Madonna, we can say that she has become fully integrated into a world (as yet unrealized elsewhere) where race does not matter for getting along with others in equality and love.

What causes T. Ray to become so bitter and abusive toward Lily?

Answer: Lily's mother and T. Ray had seemingly been truly in love when they first began their relationship. August tells Lily that Deborah said that T. Ray treated her like a princess, and they conceived a child. Deborah finally agreed to marry T. Ray after she was pregnant. Yet, at some point in their marriage, their relationship turned sour. Deborah fell into depression, the cause of which is uncertain. Deborah eventually left her Sylvan home with Lily to escape to Tiburon. Lily determines that when Deborah left, it must have effectively killed T. Ray, which would explain his harsh attitude and bitterness. Additionally, Deborah's death must have caused T. Ray great sadness. Now that Lily has grown to be a teenager, she looks more and more like Deborah. T. Ray takes out his anger towards Deborah on Lily, most clearly demonstrated at the end of the novel, when he actually addresses Lily as Deborah.

Discuss why and how Lily is torn about her sense of home after she arrives in Tiburon.

Answer: Lily loves her new life in Tiburon. She loves her work in the honey house, her relationship with the Boatwright sisters, and her interactions with Zach. She finds herself happy keeping her life a secret and keeping the facade she has created. Yet, despite her utopian life in Tiburon, Lily cannot help but wonder what T. Ray is going through back in Sylvan. After all, despite T. Ray's horrible treatment of Lily, he is the only real parent whom Lily has known. Lily wonders if he misses her, if he worries about her, and if he feels guilty for her treatment of her. Due to this curiosity, Lily surrenders to her urges and calls T. Ray, which ultimately leads him to find her in Tiburon.

How does Lily's relationship with Zach expand her understanding of herself and of society?

Answer: Once Lily begins her relationship with Zach, she learns that she has the capability to love a boy. Additionally, she is fascinated by the thought that she is capable of becoming so enamored by a black boy, a situation she had never thought possible. She begins to become more in touch with her own body as it is evolving into womanhood. She also more clearly understands her feelings, her urges, and her fears. Zach provides her with a solid sense of self, of confidence, and of hope for her future. Lily also learns that society will not always make room for love. Societal views in the time and place of the novel would never permit a relationship between a young interracial couple. Lily learns that despite her mutual feelings with Zach, the nation needs some sort of revolution before it will accept their relationship.

August tells Lily that the most important purpose of life is to "persist in love." How does August exemplify her own words?

Answer: August has lived an unmarried life, but she is in no way alone. From her childhood, she has always been surrounded by the love of her family. August returns that love unconditionally. She discusses her intense love and her sorrow concerning April. She consistently tolerates the narrow-minded opinions of June, and she does everything she can to provide May with as much relief from pain as possible. She is clearly the leader of the family, for she runs the honey farm, bringing in the majority of the income. At the same time, however, August represents the emotional leadership in the family, holding the other women as they cry, laughing with them, and providing unconditional love. At a time when it would be easier not to do so, August provided great love for Deborah, even after she finished working with the Fontanel family. A generation later, August allows Lily to stay with her, persisting in love for Deborah. She loves Lily despite her lies, her anger, and her sadness. She ultimately makes a great sacrifice, taking Lily and Rosaleen into her household, because she loves them. (Remember the positive meanings of the word "august," which also relate to August.)

The Secret Life of Bees Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for The Secret Life of Bees is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

what happened when shoe arrived at the jail with lily and rosaleen

Franklin hit Rosaleen with his flashlight.

why were bits of paper stuck in the stone wall

It was May's way to dealing with suffering. Whenever May Boatwright hears about something tragic in the world, she writes it down on a piece of paper and slips the paper into the cracks of a stone wall near her house.

Lily finds herself making choices based on signs she interprets, what is she trying to decide based on seeing the crop duster flying over the tops in Tiburon?

In this scene, Lily is trying to decide whether or not she should remain living in an uncertain world filled with questions and fear... or move on... begin her journey of personal identity and self discovery. The flight of the crop-duster serves...

Study Guide for The Secret Life of Bees

The Secret Life of Bees study guide contains a biography of Sue Monk Kidd, literature essays, 100 quiz questions, major themes, characters, a glossary, and a full summary and analysis.

• About The Secret Life of Bees
• The Secret Life of Bees Summary
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Essays for The Secret Life of Bees

Literature essays on The Secret Life of Bees are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd.

• The Concept of Monomyth in Kidd's Secret Life of Bees
• The Role of Nature in The Secret Life of Bees
• Mother Figures in The Secret Life of Bees
• Pervasive Racism in The Secret Life of Bees
• Love, Forgiveness, Enlightenment: Lily's Journey in The Secret Life of Bees

Lesson Plan for The Secret Life of Bees

• About the Author
• Study Objectives
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• Relationship to Other Books
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The Secret Life of Bees

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A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-2

Chapters 3-4

Chapters 5-6

Chapters 7-8

Chapters 9-10

Chapters 11-12

Chapters 13-14

Character Analysis

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Zach gifts Lily a notebook for her stories after he learns of her dreams to be a writer someday. What does this practice of writing things down, of telling stories, release in Lily? Why is this activity important for her?

How do Lily’s racist beliefs come to the surface in the pink house? Why is she suddenly able to see some of her own implicit biases more clearly?

Grief is a subject that takes many shapes in this novel. How does witnessing others’ grief help Lily move through her own?

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Essays on The Secret Life of Bees

The Secret Life of Bees is an important and thought-provoking novel that explores themes of family, race, and female empowerment. Writing an essay about this book can help you delve deeper into its meaning and significance.

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The secret life of bees.

• 1) The Secret Life of Bees explores the power of female relationships in overcoming adversity.

The Maternal Themes in "The Secret Life of Bees"

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Lily's Journey of Love, Awareness, and Remission in The Secret Life of Bees

A study of the theme of pervasive racism as illustrated in the secret life of bees, analysis of characters in the secret life of bees, the nature of grief in sue monk kidd’s the secret life of bees, let us write you an essay from scratch.

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1964 Insights: an Argument Against The Use of a Different Era When Setting The Secret Life of Bees

The monomyth notion in the secret life of bees by kidd, a similarity of characters in two different books, symbolism in "the secret life of bees": unveiling deeper meanings.

November 8th 2001

Sue Monk Kidd

Historical Fiction

Lily Melissa Owens, T. Ray Owens, Deborah Fontanel Owens, Rosaleen Daise, August Boatwright, June Boatwright, May Boatwright, Zachary "Zach" Taylor, Neil, The Daughters of Mary

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The Secret Life of Bees: Exploring Family Relations

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Essays on The Secret Life of Bees

The Secret Life of Bees The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd is a narrative that presents the challenges of a young girl in an attempt to find motherly love. The narrative integrates various themes that aid in explicating the protagonist s search for acceptance and love from a...

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Secret Life of Bees

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During the Civil Rights Movement there was a lot of hatred and violence between the black community and the white community all because of skin color. When Whitney Moore Young, Jr. states, “Together, blacks and whites can move our country beyond racism and create for the benefit of all of us an open society, one that assures freedom, justice, and full equality for all”, Whitney means that if all the hate is put aside, the community, even the entire country, can overcome anything. Racism can make or break a community or just a simple friendship.

In The Secret Life of Bees, a novel by Sue Monk Kidd, worlds collide during the time of prejudice and racism. In the novel, a young girl tries to find herself within a black family, and learns more than she expected about herself, then she would anywhere else. She sees how even she, herself, has evidence of slight racism in her mind. When racism takes over of a society, it does not just change the mind of one person. It changes the mind of many, causing relationships and friendships between people to falter or grow.

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Racism can cause a dilemma with relationships between people and cause them to be at a thin line. When Lily and Zach are eating lunch after a day of work, Zach explains his dream job and what he plans to accomplish in the future. When Lily hears about it she cannot believe it. She has a sense of annoyance. Without even knowing it, she is being a bit of a racist when she states, “I’ve just never heard of a Negro lawyer, that’s all. You’ve got to hear of these things before you can imagine them” (Kidd 121).

Lily does not realize she is putting Zach down by saying the statement above. Zach became defensive and stood up for himself, but surprisingly did not hold a grudge. It was more of him teaching Lily a lesson that the most famous and intelligent people do not get where they are by being unoriginal and uncreative. They get where they are by imagining what has never been seen before. Right around when Lily and Rosaleen first get there, Lily has a thought that suddenly seems to prove to her that she does have some prejudice in her and she is not as open-minded as she thought.

Her thought after meeting August is, “Since I want to tell the whole truth, which means the worst parts, I thought they could be smart, but not as smart as me, me being white” (Kidd 78). Lily suddenly feels like she has learned a lesson about herself by meeting August and the Boatwright sisters. Until this point, she has understood racism as an act whites only committed towards color people. Nevertheless, Lily respects and feels devoted to August, and this respect and devotion begins to grow the relationship between August and Lily into something similar to a daughter-mother relationship.

This only proves how racism can make or break a relationship, because you can either offend or learn from what you are doing and thinking. Racism does not just go one way and it never will. Everyone as different thoughts and everyone feels differently about certain things. It is a way of life almost. Lily discovers this once she begins living in the Boatwright house when June makes a statement, “But she’s white, August” (Kidd 87). When Lily overhears June make this comment, she becomes angry and thinks how absurd it is to dislike someone for their skin color.

What Lily does not seem to realize right away is that it is the same thing when it comes to the discrimination white people have towards color people. This is an interesting moment in the novel because white people do not usually experience this type of discrimination and it confuses Lily at first but later realizes the reason June does not like her is because of the color of her skin and who she is. It only helps prove how racism can cause a relationship to never even be close to a relationship.

The prejudice that goes around society also influences the way relationships are made and how they grow because society almost influences everything done and how it is done. An example of this is when Zach tells Lily, “Lily, I like you better than any girl I’ve ever known, but you have to understand, there are people who would kill boys like me for even looking at girls like you” (Kidd 135). Zach says this to Lily regarding any potential romantic relationship between them. This comment shows how unfair racism can be and is.

Young love is typically carefree and easy and something you look forward to. However, as young teenagers, Lily and Zach have to think about the prejudices of the rest of the society because how dangerous it can get. Racism is not something that will ever really go away in this country or anywhere else as a matter of fact. It can break apart an entire nation just because of the way people think and look at things differently. Even though that is how things already are, when it comes to something so serious like racism though, there is a very thin line that people seem to cross a lot.

It all just impacts the society and how it works because of a certain group of people see things a different way then it causes people to feel like what they do can be wrong if it is not approved of. People should just respect each other and let everyone be. It can really bring the nation or just a small community together and that moves the generation forward into something so much bigger and stronger. It is how Whitney Moore stated that if we can all learn to move forward as one, it can become an open society, full of all the wonderful things a society should be filled with.

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Racism in “the secret life of bees”.

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Symbols in Secret Life of Bees

1. What are some of the ways that bees serve as symbols in Lily's life? Answer: Bees symbolize Lily's mother in a number of instances throughout the novel. In Sylvan, Lily feels her mother's presence when swarms of bees enter her room. Her mother's name, Deborah, literally translates as "bee. " She follows the path

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Secret Life of Bees Outline

The novel "The Secret Life of Bees" by Sue Monk Kidd explores the profound influence of love between individuals from diverse racial backgrounds and the strong bond forged through maternal affection. The protagonist embarks on a journey to seek this love, only to discover that it is not readily attainable, irrespective of the path taken.In

The Secret Life of Bees An Analysis of Forgiveness and Responsibility

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The Secret Life of Bees, a novel by Sue Monk Kid, highlights the profound influence that stories hold over the characters' lives. The narrative centers around Lily Owens, a 14-year-old girl who carries the weight of guilt stemming from her mother's demise and her father's hostility towards her. Motivated to alter her situation, Lily flees

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