The novel The Secret Life of Bees written by Sue Monk Kidd represents the maturation and development of one main central character. Before Kidd wrote this novel, she graduated from Texas Christian University with a B. S. degree in nursing, and she worked in nursing for many years. Later in life, in Kidd’s mid-twenties, she grew to love writing, and she eventually attended school for writing and obtained a degree in this profession. The novel, The Secret Life of Bees, started off as a short story that Kidd wrote, until she decided to turn the short story into an actual novel, she published in 2002.
Although this is not Kidd’s first novel written, she often focuses on the development of one main character in her novels. In this novel, Lily Owens, happens to be the main character in Kidd develops into a matured young lady who can have mood swings, just like any other teenager. Throughout the novel, Lily demonstrates her maturation three times; her running away from home, denying the truth of her past time and lastly the accepting of what happened in her past. In the beginning of the novel, Lily decides to run away from home, to hopefully find out more about her mother and to save herself from T-Ray.
Although the main reasons Lily is running away are to save herself from being abused and to help Rosaleen escape from jail, there is a much deeper meaning to why she runs away. Lily runs away to find out more about her mother and to see what kind of person she used to be before she was murdered. In this quotation T-Ray and Lily’s conversation states; “.. His face was bright red, You think that god-damn woman gave a shit about you. ”.. “My mother loved me! ” I cried (39). In this quotation these characters suggest that Lily runs away, not only to prove that her mother actually did care about her very much, but also to run away from T-Ray.
When Lily runs away from home, she starts to develop into a mature young lady. Lily starts to develop into a mature young lady by running away because it demonstrates that she can take problems into her own hands and figure them out with little information. Lily does this by going to the place where the photograph she received from her mother was taken. Also, running away can be seen as the development of Lily into a mature young lady; by escaping from T-Ray, she is able to hide from the abuse and escape the danger in the presence of T-Ray.
Therefore, by escaping, she does not have to live a life in fear anymore. Essentially, the development of the character Lily can be illustrated in the topic of when she runs away from home to learn more about her deceased mother and to possibly save her life by leaving T-Ray. Although the development of Lily throughout the novel can be seen when she runs away from home, it can also be seen when she denies everything that happened in her past. The development of Lily can be demonstrated from Lily denying everything in her past time because it illustrates that she is turning into a young teenager.
Lily, just like any young teenager has a stage in her life, where she does not believe anything she hears and rejects it all, just to justify what she believes. In this quotation suggested by T-Ray, he states, “Your sorry mother run off and left you. The day she died, she’d come back to get her things, that’s all” (40). In this quotation T-Ray states that Lily does not believe that her mother would actually leave her alone with him forever because she loved her too much. Also, to illustrate that Lily does not believe she murdered her mother; therefore, she believes that she did not pull the trigger of the gun that killed her mother.
Lily lives in denial that she did kill her mother; she believes something else killed her mother or that her mother deserted her, leaving her with T-Ray. When Lily denies everything in which she is told about what happened to her mother, she starts to develop into a young lady. Every teen in their life has a stage where the teen denies everything they hear because they do not want to know the actual truth. But in reality, in Lily’s case, denial is only going to hurt her in the future when she actually accepts what happened. Therefore, the character of Lily is growing up to into a young teenager throughout the stage of denial.
Although the development of the character of Lily can be demonstrated through denial, her development can also be demonstrated through her acceptance of her past time. Near the end of the novel The Secret Life of Bees, Lily demonstrates how she has grown throughout the novel, by accepting the death of her mother and the constant neglect from her father, T-Ray. When Lily accepts the death of her mother and her father’s treatment of her, she is able to grow up and become the mature young lady who can live with a difficult past.
Lily, with the agonizing past, she does have, her past will affect the person she will be in the future. In this quotation, T-Ray states, “I could tell you I did it. That’s what you wanna hear. I could tell you she did it to herself, but both ways I’d be lying. It was you who did it, Lily. You didn’t mean it, but it was you” (299). In this quotation, T-Ray suggests that Lily finally finds out the real truth to what really caused the death of her mother, and she accepts it knowing that she is not able to change it.
Lily’s acceptance of everything that has gone wrong in her past illustrates how she has turned into a mature young lady at the end of the novel. She illustrates this because she does not react in any way to T-Ray showing that the truth does not affect her, in which would have in the past. In the past, Lily would have started to go bezerk, started to cry and started to run away to be somewhere quiet; but, now she accepts it and moves on with life because she knows there is nothing she can do about it now.
A final way Lily develops into a young lady through acceptance, is when she finally told the Boatwright sisters the truth about everything. Before, when Lily arrived at the Boatwright sister’s household, she was too scared to tell them why she really came; so instead, she came up with a lie that the Boatwright sisters believed. But. as time goes on, Lily develops into the young lady who can accept her past; she does this by telling the Boatwright sisters why she really came.
When she tells the Boatwright sisters the truth about everything, it can be seen as her acceptance of her past because she is finally willing to talk about what happened, and accept it knowing she cannot change what happened. Overall, Lily’s acceptance of what happened when she was younger illustrates how she develops into a young lady who can handle bad news. Overall, as time goes on in someone’s life, they develop into the person they are because of what happened in their past. In the novel The Secret Life of Bees written by Sue Monk Kidd, the author illustrates the maturation and the development of one main character.
Although there are many characters who have importance in the novel, the character of Lily is the main character who Kid develops throughout the novel. The development of Lily into a mature young lady who can deal with her past falls into the three main categories demonstrated above; running away from home, denying the truth, and accepting the truth in the end. In the beginning when Lily runs away from T-Ray to find out about her mother, she is starting to mature into a young lady because a mature person would confront their problems; therefore, she goes to deal with them.
Also, as the novel progresses, Lily denies the truth, acting just like a young teenager who is in the stage when they do not believe anything they hear. Finally, at the end of the novel, Lily can be seen as a developed, mature young lady because of her acceptance of the truth without any reaction. Lily finds out what happened in the past, accepts it, and moves on because she knows that she cannot change the past. In the novel The Secret Life of Bees, there are many characters throughout repetitious of the novel, but Lily is the one who develops the most.
