Examples Of Juxtaposition In The Secret Life Of Bees

Lily’s idolization of her mother is shown in how she describes Deborah’s belongings. A photo, which she see’s her mother's beautiful, gloves that Lily holds as if it were actually hers, and a photo of the black Mary which she keeps close. Right before Lily finds out T. Ray was right in saying Deborah left them Lily says she never believed him and she wants to prove him wrong. Characters with flaws are a lot more sympathetic and likeable to the reader instead of the perfect flawless unrealistic ones. Kidd got the reader to understand these flaws with how August tried to explain the situation to Lily, “All she did was cry for a week.

Chapter 1 The five aspects of a quest are: (a) a quester, (b) a place to go, (c) a stated reason to go there, (d) challenges and trials en route, and (e) a real reason to go there. A book that uses the aspects of a quest very nicely is the secret life of bees. (a) The quester in this story is a young girl named lily owens who fights with her father and does not have a mother because lily accidently shot her when she younger.

”(Kidd 256). Lily is a very deep character who holds a lot of guilt, sadness, and hatred over herself for what happened to her and her mother. But as she grows more mature and finally learns the truth she knows she has to accept it for what it is. She's able to work it out herself and realize there is a place for her in the world. She never was able to accept who she was until

Lily has just spotted it in the Boatwright house. She has yet to learn of its significance, to experience its important role in the lives of the Daughters of Mary, and to understand its place in the family history of the Boatwright sisters. Rather, Lily simply yet viscerally reacts to the statue’s material, color, and gesture. Immediately

Lily is the main character, and narrator of her story, through her interactions she gains an understanding

Lily remembers being very close to her mother, and Lily was only four years old when her mother died. Lily was really depressed and mad at herself because she knew that she was the reason that her mother died. This quote states that “Lily is sustained by her wit and latent strength of character but at the same time by a profound need to make sense of powerful and confusing memories concerning her mother, Deborah, who died when she was four years old”(Monk Kidd). Years later when she was working in the peach stand, T-Ray came out and told her that she didn’t kill her mother but that her mother ran away and abandoned her. Lily says that “I lay in bed and thought about dying and going to be with my mother in paradise.

With love, we can be accepted into a community, or accept ourselves. During a religious procedure where everyone gets to touch the black Mary’s heart, Lily states, “June kept playing while each of them came, until there was only Rosaleen and me left. May nodded to June to keep on with the music,” (Kidd 111). The Black Mary itself symbolizes maternal figures, representing strength and guidance. The Daughters of Mary put their belief and trust in Black Mary to guide them, shown by them touching her heart.

Tired of lying to August, Lily decides to tell the truth to her, and find out about her mother, Deborah, hoping to hear exactly what she had pictured. As Lily unfolds the truth about her mother’s past, she becomes frustrated learning that she wasn’t up to her expectations. Lily wishes that her mother had “been smart enough, or loving enough, to realize everybody has burdens that crush them, only they don't give up their children” (278). Furious, she believes her mother is a blind and foolish person who doesn't know what love is. Hurt by the truth, Lily realizes that “once you know the truth, you can't ever go back and pick up your suitcase of lies.

Even after everything that she and her mother have done to each other, Lily still forgives them both. Working with the bees taught Lily to be kind and gentle, to love the world and forgive

14) In this quote from the book at the very beginning one is able to see that Lily had this admiration and longing for her late mother and just wanted a sense of her to remember her by. Throughout the story one is able to see that as Lily comes to learn who her mother was and what she did she starts to create some sort of hatred towards her mother. The way she thinks about her mother changes as she comes to hear all the events that played out in her mother's life from a character named August who was important to Lily’s mother and Lily herself. “ “I guess one day it finally dawned on her: oh, yeah,

I killed her” (241) and when she torments herself with thinking that she is unlovable. Lily even describes that her words had “broke open her heart” (242). This shows how captive Lily is over her mother because, despite loving her life at the Boatwright’s house, she can still move past the death. Lily’s suffering increase after finding out that her mother had willingly left her behind with T-Ray and begins to question why? It even makes her thoughts sink deeper into depression,“it was easy for her to leave me, because she never wanted me in the first place” (252).

This quote encapsulates the influence Lily’s father’s violence had on her and how it shapes her perspective on relationships. The quote portrays Lily’s realization that the childhood trauma she faced has defined her character in adulthood. Additionally, as she is in a conversation with Ryle, Lily says, “Fight or Flight. That’s our natural instinctual defense when we sense danger. But when it comes to abuse of any kind, one or the other isn’t sufficient.

Lily, who is drawn to the image of the Black Madonna, finds refuge in the Mother Mary statue in the Boatwrights' honey home. Lily was shocked to find a little black statue of the Virgin Mary. The statue has an impact on her because, as stated in the statement, it appears to "understand" her; that is, it appears to know all about her hidden worries and concerns, for example, her guilt over her mother's death.” The lips on the statue had a beautiful, bossy half smile, the sight of which caused me to move both my hands up to my throat. Everything about that smile said, Lily Owens, I know you down to the core.”

In the story, Kidd’s use of characterization successfully reveals the theme that people's lives are more complex than they appear. Kidd demonstrates this theme using the characterization of Lily, T. Ray, May, and Deborah. One character that Sue Monk Kidd uses to portray the theme, is the main character Lily. In the beginning of the story, the author shows that Lily can be both mature and immature at times. An example of her maturity in the text is when she says, “People who think dying is the worst thing don’t know a thing about life” (Kidd 2).

Throughout The Secret Life of Bees bees play a recurring role in the novel, repeatably being mentioned during the novel in epigrams before the start of each chapter and within the story itself. Unfortunately, on certain occasions the reason why bees are included in a certain part of the story can be unclear and confusing to readers, causing them to occasionally misinterpret the importance of bees throughout the novel. Regardless, the bees throughout play a very important role in understanding many of the themes and symbolism that Kidd included within the novel. In The Secret Life of Bees Kidd symbolizes Lily’s experiences and situations through the bees frequently present in the novel to show that seemingly different things can function in the same way.