This story is set in South Carolina in the mid 1960’s. The main characters include Lily Owens, a fourteen year old girl; Rosaleen, an old African-American who serves as Lily’s nanny; and T. Ray, Lily’s cruel father. Lily is an emotional character who is haunted by the memory of the accident that killed her mother. Lily’s guilt is increased by the fact that she was the one who caused the gun to fire. Lily seems to be especially bothered by the fact that she has no memories of her mother and that she has been unable to share some milestones with her mother. The action starts in the middle of Chapter 1 when Rosaleen goes to town to register to vote and Lily goes with her. On the way, she takes fans from the church without permission and pours her snuff juice on the shoes of some racist men who confront them. Rosaleen and Lily are taken to jail. T. Ray comes and gets Lily only. Lily soon runs away after T. Ray tells Lily that her mother abandoned her. Rosaleen had been taken to a hospital after she had been beaten by the racist men in jail and Lily sneaks her out of the hospital. The two characters then plan to escape to Tiburon, South Carolina because it is written on the back of a picture of a black Mary that was among the possessions of Lily’s mother. I predict that the picture of the black Mary will be very important in the plot development and that Tiburon will lead Lily to a safe place.
In this section, Tiburon really does become an important place in the book. Lily and Rosaleen wake after spending the night near a creek and go to Tiburon. When they arrive in town, they go to Frogmore Stew General Store and Lily buys food. While Lily is in the store, she sees honey jars with the same black Mary picture on their labels as in Lily’s picture. The store clerk tells her that August Boatwright, who lives in Tiburon, is the person who makes the honey. Lily and Rosaleen go to the Boatwright house. They lie about the circumstances that caused them to arrive in Tiburon and are allowed to stay at the house with the three Boatwright sisters. In the parlor of the house, there is a statue of a black Mary similar to the picture and label. Lily also learns that the honey the Boatwright’s make is called Black Madonna honey. I am anxious to see if Lily’s picture is related to the honey label in a significant way. The Boatwright sisters are African-Americans and seem to be successful, important people. August is the leader of the three sisters. May seems to have some emotional issues such as compulsive humming and crying easily. June is suspicious of the guests, but August seems to dominate over her and allows Lily and Rosaleen to stay.
This section introduced new information about the sisters and the black Mary. Chapter 5 began with a description of Lily’s life as a beekeeper “apprentice”. After a week with the sisters, Lily was beginning to feel comfortable with her life until she overheard August and June talking about how they saw through Lily’s story. I also learned why May has emotional problems in this chapter. Apparently, May had a twin sister, April, who had committed suicide after experiencing racial injustice and depression. After April died, May had taken on the world as her twin and felt all the suffering of others. The only way for her to release her misery was to write it on a slip of paper and put it in her stone wall. In Chapter 6, Neil entered the picture. He loved June, but she has avoided marrying him after her first engagement was ruined. The key information from this chapter was about the Daughters of Mary, a small religious society of African-Americans. The statue in the parlor, called Our Lady of Chains, had been found in a river by a slave, who placed the statue in his home and began praying in front of her. The master of this slave took away the statue four different times and chained it to a wall, but each time the statue got back to the slave. The statue, therefore, seems to symbolize both faith and hope for the end of discrimination. Lily witnessed a ceremony around the statue by the Daughters of Mary and fainted in front of Mary when she was about to touch Mary’s heart. After this experience, Lily became fascinated with the statue and prayed to Our Lady of Chains to protect her. I do not think that Our Lady of Chains will connect to Lily’s mother, but it does explain the meaning of the picture and reinforces my suspicion that Lily’s mother is connected to the Boatwrights. I predict that Lily will confess her real story to August in the next section.
In this section, Lily meets August’s main helper, Zach. Zach is the star running back at the black high school and he earns all A’s in school. He could get a scholarship to a school in the north and he wants to be a lawyer. In the course of Chapter 7, Lily falls in love with Zach. Lily’s emotional stress is increased because Zach is black and she does not think she should love a black boy. Near the end of Chapter 7, June has a fight with Neil over marriage she throws tomatoes at Neil’s car as he drives away. In Chapter 8, Lily learns that the picture of the black Mary on the honey labels is the Black Madonna of Breznichar in Bohemia. She also learns that August had seen the statue of the black Mary since she was a child and has a deep love for it. August had lived in Richmond as a child, but all of the Boatwright sisters had come to their grandma’s house, which is where the sisters are currently living. Their grandma had told them the story of Our Lady of Chains and taught August to love the bees and beekeeping. Lily also learns that August went to school for teaching, but she had served as a housekeeper for several years. She then taught for six years and moved to Tiburon to keep bees after ending her teaching career. After this conversation with August, Lily went with Zach to the lawyer’s office to deliver honey. While she was waiting in the lobby, she called T. Ray and asked if he knew her favorite color as a test to see if he loved her. He did not and Lily went back to the Boatwright’s dejected because she had hoped that T. Ray had changed. Later that night, Lily had a personal experience with Our Lady of Chains when she was able to touch her heart. I predict that Lily will be more confident now that she has gained enough courage to call T. Ray and touch Mary’s heart.
Chapter 9 began on a very hot day. Lily got up early to water the bees. When she arrived back at the Boatwright’s house, Rosaleen and May were running around a sprinkler. Rosaleen and May invited August and Lily to join them and they all had a great time. June came out of the house to see what was happening and Lily sprayed her. She got angry and tried to take the sprinkler away from Lily, but she couldn’t and June fell to the ground laughing. When she got up, June gave Lily a hug, signaling that she no longer held a grudge against Lily. Later that day, Lily noticed May making a trail of food for roaches to follow out of the house, something Lily’s mother used to do. Lily asked May if she knew, “a Deborah Fontanel.” May said that she did and that Deborah had stayed in the honey house. May then said that she had to go out to her wall. This very important information revealed the connection between Lily’s mother and Tiburon, the black Mary, and the Boatwrights. Several days later, Lily went with Zach to get some parts for the honey wagon. After Zach parked the car, Lily noticed several white men standing on the other side of the street. She had heard that someone was coming to integrate the theater and that people were trying to stop that person, so she was nervous when Zach got out of the car. Zach went over to a group of his friends who were there and one the boys made a comment about the white men. The white men came over and confronted them, so one of the black boys threw his Coke bottle on the ground. The glass pieces caused a white man to bleed, so the white men called the police and all of the black boys got arrested. No one told May what happened. One night, May answered the phone and talked to Zach’s mother. She learned that Zach was in jail and suddenly collapsed. When she was revived, she said that she needed to go to her wall. May had been outside for a while, so everyone decided to look for her. She was not at her wall, so they looked in the woods and eventually found her in the river. She had placed heavy rocks on her chest and drowned herself. After this incident, Zach got out of jail after a theater employee said who had thrown the bottle. August found a note from May several days later that told them to live life while they had it. After reading the note, August told June that she should marry Neil. June became quieter for the rest of Chapter 10. I predict that June will marry Neil and Lily will confess to August.
Chapter 11 began with the sisters planning for Mary Day, or the Feast of the Assumption. Lily woke up late and went downstairs to find the Boatwrights and Rosaleen making food. She was told to help cook, clean, and get out the chains to celebrate Our Lady of Chains. In the middle of this, Neil visited June and asked her to marry him. June accepted and everyone was ecstatic. All preparation was halted so June could get her ring and so the others could celebrate. When June returned with her ring, the Mary Day festivities began. First, the Daughters of Mary gave each other a communion-like piece of honey cake that represented the body of Mary. Then, they took Our Lady of Chains to the honey house and chained her to the wall. During this ceremony, Lily became upset and went to the woods. Zach followed her and Lily told him that she did not want him to become mean because he had been arrested. Zach kissed her and gave her his dogtag to remember him forever. Lily went up to August’s room to finally confess to her hostess. When August came upstairs, Lily showed August the picture of her mother. August surprised Lily by telling the young girl that she had known all along that she was the daughter of Deborah Fontanel Owens. August’s job as a housekeeper had been at Lily’s mother’s house. June had resented August working as a housekeeper, so she took it out on Lily. When August left to become a teacher, Lily’s mother came to South Carolina. Lily’s mother soon met T. Ray and married him because she was pregnant with Lily. Eventually, Lily’s mother could not stand T. Ray and ran away to the Boatwright’s house. After several months, she started talking about missing Lily. She went back to get her and that is when Lily accidentally killed her. Lily was crushed by this story of being left by her mother. I think that Lily will want to stay with the Boatwrights.
7. At the beginning of Chapter 13, Lily was on her bed still upset about her mother. The emotional stress built to the point where she threw honey jars against the wall, breaking them and causing a big mess. After Rosaleen helped Lily clean the room, the Daughters of Mary came for the second day to celebrate the Assumption of Mary. The second ceremony consisted of smearing Our Lady with honey as a symbol of preserving her in the Daughters’ hearts. After eating a meal, the Daughters washed Mary with water as a symbol of cleansing. Lily went to her room after everyone had left to think about her mother. August came into the room with a box containing some of Lily’s mother’s possessions and they looked through the box together. Lily found a picture of her mother feeding her as a baby and Lily felt that she really was loved by her mother. In Chapter 14, Rosaleen became a registered voter without incident and Lily began to feel less depressed about her mother. Just when things seemed to return to normal, T. Ray came to the Boatwright’s house. Lily let him in and tried to stall until someone else came. Suddenly, T. Ray was grabbing Lily’s arm and he wielded his knife, thinking she was Lily’s mother. When he recovered from his confusion, August entered the room and told him that Lily could stay in Tiburon. T. Ray accepted August’s offer and Lily stayed in Tiburon having found a mother in Mary. I really enjoyed the historical aspects of this novel. The storyline and the pace of the book really kept my attention.
Didn't the passage of background information say that Antigone was a victim of Creon's hubris? Some of you are suggesting that Antigone is the tragic hero. Thoughts on that.
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The Secret Life of Bees
(Chapters 1-2)
This story is set in South Carolina in the mid 1960’s. The main characters include Lily Owens, a fourteen year old girl; Rosaleen, an old African-American who serves as Lily’s nanny; and T. Ray, Lily’s cruel father. Lily is an emotional character who is haunted by the memory of the accident that killed her mother. Lily’s guilt is increased by the fact that she was the one who caused the gun to fire. Lily seems to be especially bothered by the fact that she has no memories of her mother and that she has been unable to share some milestones with her mother. The action starts in the middle of Chapter 1 when Rosaleen goes to town to register to vote and Lily goes with her. On the way, she takes fans from the church without permission and pours her snuff juice on the shoes of some racist men who confront them. Rosaleen and Lily are taken to jail. T. Ray comes and gets Lily only. Lily soon runs away after T. Ray tells Lily that her mother abandoned her. Rosaleen had been taken to a hospital after she had been beaten by the racist men in jail and Lily sneaks her out of the hospital. The two characters then plan to escape to Tiburon, South Carolina because it is written on the back of a picture of a black Mary that was among the possessions of Lily’s mother. I predict that the picture of the black Mary will be very important in the plot development and that Tiburon will lead Lily to a safe place.
The Secret Life of Bees
(Chapters 3-4)
In this section, Tiburon really does become an important place in the book. Lily and Rosaleen wake after spending the night near a creek and go to Tiburon. When they arrive in town, they go to Frogmore Stew General Store and Lily buys food. While Lily is in the store, she sees honey jars with the same black Mary picture on their labels as in Lily’s picture. The store clerk tells her that August Boatwright, who lives in Tiburon, is the person who makes the honey. Lily and Rosaleen go to the Boatwright house. They lie about the circumstances that caused them to arrive in Tiburon and are allowed to stay at the house with the three Boatwright sisters. In the parlor of the house, there is a statue of a black Mary similar to the picture and label. Lily also learns that the honey the Boatwright’s make is called Black Madonna honey. I am anxious to see if Lily’s picture is related to the honey label in a significant way. The Boatwright sisters are African-Americans and seem to be successful, important people. August is the leader of the three sisters. May seems to have some emotional issues such as compulsive humming and crying easily. June is suspicious of the guests, but August seems to dominate over her and allows Lily and Rosaleen to stay.
The Secret Life of Bees
(Chapters 5-6)
This section introduced new information about the sisters and the black Mary. Chapter 5 began with a description of Lily’s life as a beekeeper “apprentice”. After a week with the sisters, Lily was beginning to feel comfortable with her life until she overheard August and June talking about how they saw through Lily’s story. I also learned why May has emotional problems in this chapter. Apparently, May had a twin sister, April, who had committed suicide after experiencing racial injustice and depression. After April died, May had taken on the world as her twin and felt all the suffering of others. The only way for her to release her misery was to write it on a slip of paper and put it in her stone wall. In Chapter 6, Neil entered the picture. He loved June, but she has avoided marrying him after her first engagement was ruined. The key information from this chapter was about the Daughters of Mary, a small religious society of African-Americans. The statue in the parlor, called Our Lady of Chains, had been found in a river by a slave, who placed the statue in his home and began praying in front of her. The master of this slave took away the statue four different times and chained it to a wall, but each time the statue got back to the slave. The statue, therefore, seems to symbolize both faith and hope for the end of discrimination. Lily witnessed a ceremony around the statue by the Daughters of Mary and fainted in front of Mary when she was about to touch Mary’s heart. After this experience, Lily became fascinated with the statue and prayed to Our Lady of Chains to protect her. I do not think that Our Lady of Chains will connect to Lily’s mother, but it does explain the meaning of the picture and reinforces my suspicion that Lily’s mother is connected to the Boatwrights. I predict that Lily will confess her real story to August in the next section.
The Secret Life of Bees
(Chapters 7-8)
In this section, Lily meets August’s main helper, Zach. Zach is the star running back at the black high school and he earns all A’s in school. He could get a scholarship to a school in the north and he wants to be a lawyer. In the course of Chapter 7, Lily falls in love with Zach. Lily’s emotional stress is increased because Zach is black and she does not think she should love a black boy. Near the end of Chapter 7, June has a fight with Neil over marriage she throws tomatoes at Neil’s car as he drives away. In Chapter 8, Lily learns that the picture of the black Mary on the honey labels is the Black Madonna of Breznichar in Bohemia. She also learns that August had seen the statue of the black Mary since she was a child and has a deep love for it. August had lived in Richmond as a child, but all of the Boatwright sisters had come to their grandma’s house, which is where the sisters are currently living. Their grandma had told them the story of Our Lady of Chains and taught August to love the bees and beekeeping. Lily also learns that August went to school for teaching, but she had served as a housekeeper for several years. She then taught for six years and moved to Tiburon to keep bees after ending her teaching career. After this conversation with August, Lily went with Zach to the lawyer’s office to deliver honey. While she was waiting in the lobby, she called T. Ray and asked if he knew her favorite color as a test to see if he loved her. He did not and Lily went back to the Boatwright’s dejected because she had hoped that T. Ray had changed. Later that night, Lily had a personal experience with Our Lady of Chains when she was able to touch her heart. I predict that Lily will be more confident now that she has gained enough courage to call T. Ray and touch Mary’s heart.
The Secret Life of Bees
(Chapters 9-10)
Chapter 9 began on a very hot day. Lily got up early to water the bees. When she arrived back at the Boatwright’s house, Rosaleen and May were running around a sprinkler. Rosaleen and May invited August and Lily to join them and they all had a great time. June came out of the house to see what was happening and Lily sprayed her. She got angry and tried to take the sprinkler away from Lily, but she couldn’t and June fell to the ground laughing. When she got up, June gave Lily a hug, signaling that she no longer held a grudge against Lily. Later that day, Lily noticed May making a trail of food for roaches to follow out of the house, something Lily’s mother used to do. Lily asked May if she knew, “a Deborah Fontanel.” May said that she did and that Deborah had stayed in the honey house. May then said that she had to go out to her wall. This very important information revealed the connection between Lily’s mother and Tiburon, the black Mary, and the Boatwrights. Several days later, Lily went with Zach to get some parts for the honey wagon. After Zach parked the car, Lily noticed several white men standing on the other side of the street. She had heard that someone was coming to integrate the theater and that people were trying to stop that person, so she was nervous when Zach got out of the car. Zach went over to a group of his friends who were there and one the boys made a comment about the white men. The white men came over and confronted them, so one of the black boys threw his Coke bottle on the ground. The glass pieces caused a white man to bleed, so the white men called the police and all of the black boys got arrested. No one told May what happened. One night, May answered the phone and talked to Zach’s mother. She learned that Zach was in jail and suddenly collapsed. When she was revived, she said that she needed to go to her wall. May had been outside for a while, so everyone decided to look for her. She was not at her wall, so they looked in the woods and eventually found her in the river. She had placed heavy rocks on her chest and drowned herself. After this incident, Zach got out of jail after a theater employee said who had thrown the bottle. August found a note from May several days later that told them to live life while they had it. After reading the note, August told June that she should marry Neil. June became quieter for the rest of Chapter 10. I predict that June will marry Neil and Lily will confess to August.
The Secret Life of Bees
(Chapters 11-12)
Chapter 11 began with the sisters planning for Mary Day, or the Feast of the Assumption. Lily woke up late and went downstairs to find the Boatwrights and Rosaleen making food. She was told to help cook, clean, and get out the chains to celebrate Our Lady of Chains. In the middle of this, Neil visited June and asked her to marry him. June accepted and everyone was ecstatic. All preparation was halted so June could get her ring and so the others could celebrate. When June returned with her ring, the Mary Day festivities began. First, the Daughters of Mary gave each other a communion-like piece of honey cake that represented the body of Mary. Then, they took Our Lady of Chains to the honey house and chained her to the wall. During this ceremony, Lily became upset and went to the woods. Zach followed her and Lily told him that she did not want him to become mean because he had been arrested. Zach kissed her and gave her his dogtag to remember him forever. Lily went up to August’s room to finally confess to her hostess. When August came upstairs, Lily showed August the picture of her mother. August surprised Lily by telling the young girl that she had known all along that she was the daughter of Deborah Fontanel Owens. August’s job as a housekeeper had been at Lily’s mother’s house. June had resented August working as a housekeeper, so she took it out on Lily. When August left to become a teacher, Lily’s mother came to South Carolina. Lily’s mother soon met T. Ray and married him because she was pregnant with Lily. Eventually, Lily’s mother could not stand T. Ray and ran away to the Boatwright’s house. After several months, she started talking about missing Lily. She went back to get her and that is when Lily accidentally killed her. Lily was crushed by this story of being left by her mother. I think that Lily will want to stay with the Boatwrights.
The Secret Life of Bees
(Chapters 13-14)
7. At the beginning of Chapter 13, Lily was on her bed still upset about her mother. The emotional stress built to the point where she threw honey jars against the wall, breaking them and causing a big mess. After Rosaleen helped Lily clean the room, the Daughters of Mary came for the second day to celebrate the Assumption of Mary. The second ceremony consisted of smearing Our Lady with honey as a symbol of preserving her in the Daughters’ hearts. After eating a meal, the Daughters washed Mary with water as a symbol of cleansing. Lily went to her room after everyone had left to think about her mother. August came into the room with a box containing some of Lily’s mother’s possessions and they looked through the box together. Lily found a picture of her mother feeding her as a baby and Lily felt that she really was loved by her mother. In Chapter 14, Rosaleen became a registered voter without incident and Lily began to feel less depressed about her mother. Just when things seemed to return to normal, T. Ray came to the Boatwright’s house. Lily let him in and tried to stall until someone else came. Suddenly, T. Ray was grabbing Lily’s arm and he wielded his knife, thinking she was Lily’s mother. When he recovered from his confusion, August entered the room and told him that Lily could stay in Tiburon. T. Ray accepted August’s offer and Lily stayed in Tiburon having found a mother in Mary. I really enjoyed the historical aspects of this novel. The storyline and the pace of the book really kept my attention.
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