Non-Fiction: The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

                The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd is set in racist South Carolina in the summer of 1964. It tells the story of a young girl named Lily who runs away from her abusive home and finds herself in the company of three African-American sisters. The sisters take Lily in and give her a bed, food, clothes, and shelter in exchange for her working with the bees that produce their honey. Lily grows vastly throughout the story, and as she begins to find love and acceptance, thinks less about the haunting memory of accidentally killing her own mother. The Secret Life of Bees, overall, is an incredible story about female strength, passion, and acceptance. Although the beginning of the story starts out slowly, the rest of the novel is filled with drama that keeps the pages turning.

                The characters in The Secret Life of Bees are well developed and well spoken. There are the protagonists: Lily, the Boatwrights, Zach, and Rosaleen, and the main antagonist: T-Ray, Lily’s father. Each character has flaws and a strong past. Kidd shows great human strength through the characters in her novel as they let go of pain inside of them and learn about love and companionship.

Author Sue Monk Kidd with Oprah Winfrey!!!!!!

                The writing style of The Secret Life of Bees is filled with mass amounts of figurative language, perhaps too much, that flows perfectly. With the story written from Lily’s point of view, it allows the audience to feel everything that Lily is feeling, whether it is pain, desperation, fear, excitement, or passion. Especially at the beginning of the book when Lily describes her memory of killing her mother and being abused and neglected by her father. Sue Monk Kidd does a wonderful job of describing this pain and desperation that Lily feels inside: the idea of being loved and cared for by somebody is completely absurd and unrealistic to the extent that the only thing that Lily has to hold onto is the uncertain memory of her deceased mother.

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

 

                There are various themes and metaphors throughout the novel. Sue Monk Kidd writes about incredibly important subjects: racism, female power, growth, and mothers. When Lily falls for Zach, she begins to question the concept of racism that she has grown up with. By the end of the novel, racism is completely irrational to Lily and she decides that it will not keep her from being with the Boatwrights, Rosaleen, or Zach. Female power runs strongly through the novel as it is questioned, with the violent death and suicide of Lily’s mother and May, and admired, with the strength of August Boatwright and Lily herself. All throughout the novel, Lily carries the baggage of killing her mother and is continuously longing for a mother’s love. Interestingly enough, throughout the novel Lily really is surrounded by mothers: the memory of her mother, Rosaleen, and the Boatwright sisters. Surrounded by these women, Lily begins to heal.