The Secret Life of Bees
It is hard to imagine a fourteen-year-old girl 'springing' her nannyfrom a hospital where she was taken after being beaten for the 'crime' oftrying to vote. It is hard to imagine that her parents wouldn't be on TVlooking for her and trying to get her back and trying to get the nanny But this is what happens in The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd.It is fiction, of course, but something like it might have happened at thetime of the novel's setting, 1964. Back then, equality under the law was anew fact of life for American blacks and whites, and some in each race, butwhites especially, had a hard time accepting it. Lily Owens, the fourteen-year-old, is caught right in the middle ofall that. In addition, she has an abusive father and a deceased mother,not the best way for a child to grow up. But Lily is grown up, much more than most girls her age. She had togrow up fast, despite the care of her nanny, Rosaleen. Rosaleen couldn'talways be there when T. Ray, as Lily calls her father, is vicious to her.And even Rosaleen cannot soothe all the pain Lily feels because of her lossof her mother and her miserable treatment by T. Ray.
She could not know for sure the people wereinterested in "distant places in the sky," so she is using a metaphoricalway of saying, "They were interested in anything except what I had to say. Suddenly I couldn't stand not showing it off to somebody, even if the only person around was T. Moments later shadows moved like spatter paint along the walls, catching the light when they passed the windows so I could see the outline of wings. Sue Monk Kidd has created an engaging character,who, despite an extremely tough life, can still "wake up to wonder everyday. At the end of the book, Lilysays, "Look at me. Ray, there is bad grammar and "cussin'. Lily indicated that it is overwhelming, that she could not thinkbecause it was so bad. I could not hear myself think for all the bee hum. " It is unlikely the author would have chosen to give the character bothstrength and poetry in a single passage if the author did not like thecharacter. The author is letting Lily usevery sophisticated diction, and it displays excellently both Lily's youthand her maturity.
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Acceptance Essays
