Ready Reference Treatise: The Secret Life of Bees

By Raja Sharma

“The Secret Life of Bees” by Sue Monk Kidd was first published in 2002. It is a coming-of-age story, set in 1964.

Sue Monk Kidd had started writing “The Secret Life of Bees” as a short story in 1993. After several years, she decided to convert this short story into a novel. It was a long process of three years, and consequently the novel “The Secret Life of Bees” was produced.

While writing the book, she used to put together a collage of photos which were related to the plot of the novel. She used those photos as a source or her inspiration. However, when she began to write, she was not sure how she would connect all of the photos.

Eventually, she included three African American Women, a pink house, and a wailing wall in the story.

Ready Reference Treatise: The Secret Life of Bees
Copyright
Chapter One: Introduction
Chapter Two: Plot Overview
Chapter Three: Major Characters
Chapter Four: Complete Summary
Chapter Five: Critical Analysis

• Language: English
• Publisher: Raja Sharma
• Release date: Jan 20, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310364211

Raja Sharma

Raja Sharma is a retired college lecturer.He has taught English Literature to University students for more than two decades.His students are scattered all over the world, and it is noticeable that he is in contact with more than ninety thousand of his students.

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Ready Reference Treatise: The Secret Life of Bees

Copyright

Ready Reference Treatise: The Secret Life of Bees

Raja Sharma

Copyright@2015 Raja Sharma

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Chapter One: Introduction

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd was first published in 2002. It is a coming-of-age story, set in 1964.

Sue Monk Kidd had started writing The Secret Life of Bees as a short story in 1993. After several years, she decided to convert this short story into a novel. It was a long process of three years, and consequently the novel The Secret Life of Bees was produced.

While writing the book, she used to put together a collage of photos which were related to the plot of the novel. She used those photos as a source or her inspiration. However, when she began to write, she was not sure how she would connect all of the photos.

Eventually, she included three African American Women, a pink house, and a wailing wall in the story.

The book was highly acclaimed when it was published as a complete novel. It immediately became a New York Times bestseller. The book was greatly admired by several contemporary novelists and scholars.

Susan Isaacs, the writer of Long Time No See said that The Secret Life of Bees was ‘compulsively readable.’ Likewise, Woman and Home a British Publication described The Secret Life of Bees as a ‘superb rites of passage novel.’

The Secret Life of Bees won the Literature to Life Award. The novel has also been adapted into a movie which was released in October 2008. The movie was equally successful.

Chapter Two: Plot Overview

The story is set in South Carolina in the year 1964. The main story revolves around the life of Lily Melissa Owens. She is a fourteen years old white girl. Her mother had been killed one afternoon. The girl remains surrounded by the blurred memory of that afternoon.

T. Ray is Lily’s abusive father with whom she lives in his house. Rosaleen is an African-American maid in the house. She also acts as a surrogate mother for Lily Melissa.

As the novel opens, Lily finds some bees in her bedroom. Another major incident in the sequence is Lily’s arrest. She gets arrested for pouring her bottle of snuff juice on three white men.

Lily helps Rosaleen and successfully breaks her out of the hospital. Now Lily and Rosaleen decide to leave town. The only for them to travel is to hitch-hike. They begin to hitch-hike towards Tiburon, SC. It transpires that they are going to the place which was written on the back of an image of the Virgin Mary as a black woman, which was owned by Deborah, her mother.

Lily and Rosaleen spend a night in the woods. They have little food and almost no hope before they reach Tiburon. Having reached there, they buy lunch at a general store.

At that place, Lily sees the picture of the same Black Mary but it is on the side of a jar of honey. She recognizes the picture of Black Mary.

They come to know that honey comes from the Boatwright residence. They reach the Boatwright residence and get introduced to Boatwright sisters. The sisters are the makers of the honey. The sisters are called August, May, and June. They are all black.

Lily tells them that she is an orphan. The sisters invite Lily and Rosaleen to stay with them.

While staying with the sisters, Lily and Rosaleen learn the ways of the sisters. They also learn the art of bee keeping. They have now found a new home with a new family for the time being.

Lily comes to know more about the Black Madonna honey which is produced by the sisters. Since the sisters are very kind to them, Lily begins to work as an apprentice to August in her work of bee keeping. Rosaleen starts working around the house.

Lily comes to know that May had a twin sister, April, but she had committed suicide