The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd is about a young girl named Lily. Lily is a fourteen-year-old white girl with a scarring past. After accidentally killing her mom. And having an abusive dad she decides to try for a new beginning. Lily runs away and finds a new home at the Boatright sisters house. As she struggles to forgive herself for her past and forgive others the theme becomes very clear. You must practice forgiveness, forgiving yourself and others.
Lily makes it very hard to forgive others and herself throughout the book, many scenes come up in the book where Lily is challenged to forgive herself and others for example she must learn to forgive herself for killing her mother. Just imagine at the age of four accidentally killing your mother as she's trying to flee from an evil husband. Well that was exactly Lily's situation. Lily throughout the book learns that yes it was an accident and no she can't go back to fix it but that's ok. Because she has to move on to feel better about herself and not have that guilt in the back of her head haunting her for the remainder of her life. So to get over the quilt she must forgive herself for the death of her mother. And move on to have that quilt go away.
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Forgiving herself isn't the only person Lily must forgive, she must also forgive her mother. You may be thinking why does she need to forgive her mother. Well it's very simple at a time in the story lily thought that her mother was trying to abandon her and leave her with the evil T-Ray. And she must forgive her mother because her mom was only trying to do what was best for herself. But along with forgiving her mother she must also comprehend the whole story. Lily's mom was actually gonna take Lily with her, which is something i don't think Lily quite realized until later on in the book. But either way lily needs to understand her mother was trying to do the best for herself and even if lily doesn't think it was the best idea her mother was trying to do what's best. And if Lily understood the whole situation from the beginning maybe things would be different and her mom could possibly still be alive. But she isn't so forgiving her mother for “abandoning” her is the best alternative.
Along with forgiving her mother, Lily must forgive June who is one of the boatwright sisters. Throughout the book June is very cruel to lily. June doesnt like the idea of a white girl living with them and is somewhat racist towards white people. She dislikes them and doesn’t think lily is a good thing to have around. But even though June and Lily argue and fight throughout the book I do think Lily should forgive her for her actions. Because if you look at it from Jones point of view most white people to her aren't the nicest and usually very mean. And so having lilly around might scare her or make her uneasy. But both of them understand that each other are both very sweet and kind they put skin color aside and through the fighting away.
Along with forgiving her mother, I feel in the book Lily starts to forgive T-Ray for the horrible almost villain-like things he did. I think she finally understands by the end that her mother's death really messed with T-Ray. Maybe some of the things T-Ray did were because of that. I think by the end of the book Lily kinda understands more of why T-Ray did what he did and this brings her a step closer to trying to forgive him. Even though it doesnt tell if she fully forgives him I feel like she might've. And also if she did end up forgiving him i also feel it maybe help her forgive herself more having one more thing not to worry about. But this is a big step for Lily to at least consider forgiving or evil and mean father who did nothing but verbally and physically abuses Lily.
With the forgiving of her abusive father and forgiving her and her mother. I think the theme of practicing forgiveness really shows. It helps make the story more interesting by showing Lily's struggles in practicing forgiveness. It also helps her grow as a character throughout the book. It makes her feelings change about things she has done and things that have happened. Also, I believe if lily didn't start to forgive herself and others the story may have been a lot different.
In conclusion, the secret life of bees had a very strong theme of practicing forgiveness. Lily struggles in the book to forgive herself for things that she causes like her mother's death and her mom marrying T-Ray. But she gets through those struggles and becomes a different character. She also yearns to forgive others like her mother and T-Ray. Once forgiving her mother and starting to forgive T-Ray i believe Lily changed as a person. In all this story has many examples of practicing forgiveness and how it's not always easy but sometimes it is the right thing to do.
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Critical Analysis of The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd.
(2022, December 27). Edubirdie. Retrieved November 21, 2024, from https://edubirdie.com/examples/critical-analysis-of-the-secret-life-of-bees-by-sue-monk-kidd/
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2022 Dec 27 [cited 2024 Nov 21].
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