Theme Secrets (Secret Life of Bees)

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Secrets In Sue Monk Kidd’s novel The Secret Life of Bees Lily Owens is seeking to find the truth behind her mother Deborah Owens’s death. Since her mother’s death Lily’s life is incomplete, she hears stories from her father (who she calls T-Ray) about her mother but does not believe them. She has been living with guilt since that one night after killing her mother. T-Ray tells Lily that her mother ran away and left her behind, Lily believes he is just saying to punish her, and does not believe what he says. She says, “What if my mother leaving wasn’t true? What if T-Ray had made it up to punish me?” (Kidd 41). Lily wanted to do something about this and find out what really happened, so figures something out. Lily states, “In matter of seconds I exactly knew what to do-leave.”(41). Lily runs away from home and is on a journey to find the secrets behind her mother’s life. Lily arrives in Tiburon and see a picture on a jar that she had back home of her mothers. Lily goes to the Boatwright’s house and she did not tell really why she is really there. She keeps her identity to herself and is not ready to tell August Boatwright the truth and keeps it a secret. Lily says, “See my mother had died when I was little, and then my father died in a tractor accident last month on our farm in Spartanburg country…” (73). She lies so she can stay there and slowly learn about her mother. Lily is living a secret life just like the bees, “Bees have a secret life we don’t know anything about.” (148). Just like Lily the bees also have a secret life. She realizes that she needs to tell August Boatwright about her mother soon. Unfortunately, Lily finds out that her mother did leave her and T-Ray was telling the truth all along. Thus, Lily was upset about her mother; she comes to realize that not all secrets can be kept for so long it needs to come out to find the

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