Literary Analysis Essay on The Secret Life of Bees Text

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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 k. Gradesaver provides access to 678 study guide pdfs and quizzes, 3587 literature essays, 1197 sample college application essays, 118 lesson plans, and ad free surfing in this premium content, ldquo members only rdquo section of the site! membership includes a 10% discount on all editing orders. In sue monk kidd’s the secret life of bees, joseph campbell’s concept of the monomyth is employed to develop lily’s journey from a lack of familial recognition and worthlessness into a new life of true meaning and appreciation. In the secret life of bees by sue monk kidd, lily feels lost without a mother to lead her step by step through life. However, with her escape to tiburon, lily finally finds support and consolation through new experiences and exposures.

what are some of the ways that bees serve as symbols in lily 39 s life? a bees symbolize lily 39 s mother in a number of instances throughout the novel. In sylvan, lily feels her mother 39 s presence when swarms of bees enter her room. 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 39 s doing, and to avoid angry outbursts all reasonably good lessons for life. 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 39 s belongings. Therefore, lily makes some odd connection between the mouse bones and the sentimental day on which she learned of her mother 39 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.

how does lily 39 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 39 s relationship with her biological mother is based on memories and uncertainty.

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Lily spends the majority of her childhood attempting to put together the missing pieces in her mother 39 s life. 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.

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. 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 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. 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 39 s death, and she realizes even more strongly how her own killing of her mother has caused this loss. She does her best to alleviate the pain through rituals like putting notes in the wailing wall. 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 39 s story is false, yet august is willing to shoulder this burden in patience until lily is ready to talk. how does lily 39 s concept of race evolve throughout the novel? answer: lily begins the novel having a close relationship with rosaleen, her black housekeeper. She discovers that she has believed that she did not believe that a black person could be as smart as she is.

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. Ray to become so bitter and abusive toward lily? answer: lily 39 s mother and 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.

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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.