The Secret Life of Bees Analysis

In describing her hometown of Sylvan, South Carolina, Lily keeps it brief: . . . population 3,100. Peach stands and Baptist churches, that sums it up. (1.49) So, not exactly a spring break destina...

Lily Owens is our own personal tour guide through the fictional South Carolina towns of Sylvan and Tiburon. Her narration rides the border between adult insight and teen angst, which you can see in...

Although the history of a de-segregating South churns in the background (with occasional intrusions on Lily's world), The Secret Life of Bees is primarily the story of Lily's coming-of-age. She be...

Lily's wry-n-dry tone is one of the more delightful aspects of the novel. She's the master of spicing up garden-variety descriptions with deadpan humor. For example, when she describes her trek int...

Lily directly addresses the reader at several points, giving you the sense that she is telling you a story. Her blunt, straightforward style contributes a lot to the wryness of her tone. You can s...

Luckily, Lily and August help us out with this one. August asserts that: Most people don't have any idea about all the complicated life going on inside a hive. Bees have a secret life we don't know...

The novel ends somewhat abruptly after T. Ray allows Lily to stay with the Boatwright sisters. However, there's just enough time to squeeze in and a happy ending for Lily and her crew. In addition...

The narrator, Lily, keeps things pretty accessible. She's a fairly no-nonsense, straightforward high school student, and her language reflects those qualities. Her prose is notable for its simplici...

A Girl with a Serious Case of the Bees, er, BluesLily Owens, the book's narrator, welcomes us into her world a few days before her 14th birthday. She seems to have a vivid imagination, this Lily; w...

Anticipation Stage and 'Fall' into the Other WorldWriting from 1964, Lily Owens begins the novel pretty sad and lonely, yearning for her late mother (and a life that doesn't include her father's in...

When the book opens, Lily Owens is struggling with an angry daddy and only shadowy memories of her mother (whom she, um, accidentally killed). Plus, it's her birthday, and nobody seems to care. To...

Sue Monk Kidd tries to read a poem every morning with her coffee. (Source) Remember Lily's story about the bees swarming into her room at night? Apparently that was inspired by a story from Kidd's...

There's very little actual steaminess in the book. However, on account of several references to discriminatory language/racial epithets and grown-up topics such as racial violence (plus a little cu...

Aristaeus (10.136) Blake, William, "The Sick Rose" (13.135-137)Bronte, Charlotte, Jane Eyre (7.163)Emerson, Ralph Waldo (1.102)Hilton, James, Lost Horizon (1.97).Shakespeare, William (1.99,...