Secret Life of Bees: Motherhood

Taylor Kurtz

3/31/2010

Motherhood: A Bestselling Perspective

While many stories we have read in this class have a protagonist who is heavily influenced by a mother figure, or lack there of, none really address the issue in the unique way of Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees. The reasoning for this claim is due to the fact that Lily, the story’s young, white narrator, never really has a consistent mother figure until Rosaleen takes her in. Furthermore, the reader gets an interesting perspective on her actual mother as you learn more about her as the story goes on, when Rosaleen and Lily escape to Tiburon, South Carolina, where the truth of her mother’s past is held. Rosaleen and Lily end up living with a trio of black-beekeeping sisters, a trait and skill that is eventually intended for Lily. The head sister, August, further satisfies Lily’s search for motherhood, as she takes over the role of mother figure for Lily.

Throughout most of the story, the reason for Lily’s venture to Tiburon, in order to learn of her mother, is so rattling that she does not even tell Lily, for fear of being sent home. The memory of her mother’s death troubles Lily throughout the entire story, starting in the beginning when she begins to uncontrollably shake simply for the thought of the fight her mother got into with her abusive father T. Ray: “The memory settled over me. The suitcase on the floor. The way they’d fought. My shoulders began to shake in a strange, incontrollable way…I couldn’t stop shaking, couldn’t stop crying, and it frightened me” (Kidd 40). The horrible memory of the fight and eventual death of her mother, in addition to her bee jar being opened, leads to her realizing she needs to escape her abusive father, therefore her and Rosaleen take off to Tiburon. So a unique trait of this story is that from the beginning, Lily is on the run away from an abusive man, in search of a mother figure, and ends up finding consolation at the Boatwright house, a place where it is learned her mother had been.

Unfortunately for Lily, her entire life is filled with tragedy regarding the women role models in her life. Initially, at a young age, her mother is shot to death, followed by May, another sister at the house, who commits suicide when Zach, Lily’s black heartthrob, is arrested. It is not until the end of the story when Lily can finally relax and let the truth out to her true mother figure, August. She tells August the true story of who she is, only to find out August knew all along. This startling news leads to another devastating bit of information on her birth mother, that it was indeed T.Ray, her father, who had shot and killed her mom. Thus, unlike any other story explored in this class, it is interesting how Lily starts out with no stable family or mother, only to go on the road and find comfort in the same place as her real mother, in addition to finding a loving and accepting family structure.