The Secret Life of Bees 201-302

Summary:
After May died, everything in the house did not run as it used to. They held a vigil every day for about four days, which meant May’s body was in the house and they mourned for their loss. The sisters, August and June thought it would help them let some of the pain go by having their sister’s body in the house with them, it would allow for an easier transition from life to the afterlife. They ate, laughed and sang for May, and on the second day while they were around the house they found her suicide note near were they found her body when she died. The family, Rosaleen, Lily and the sisters knew that the letter was a reminder from May saying that she wanted them to continue living their lives, even if she wasn’t around anymore. This meant that June would have to give in and marry Neil, which eventually she agreed to doing. Zach and Lily’s relationship grew stronger; the only thing that limited them was the color of their skin, which Zach deemed would not be a problem after he finished “changing the world”. He promised her that after he makes someone out of himself, he would come find her and they would live their lives together. All Lily could do was hope and wait to see what happens in the future.

            After the celebration of Mary, known as “Mary Day” was over; Lily thought it would be a good time to talk to August about her mother Debroah. She found out that indeed, August did know her mother, but in fact she was Deborah’s housekeeper. All along August knew that Lily was Deborah’s daughter but never brought it up because she knew that whenever Lily was ready she would come to her and of course, she was right. Lily found out everything she needed to know about her mother, where she was born, all about her life, where she married T.Ray and what happened the last time August seen her mother. August also gave Lily a box of her mother’s belongings, but Lily couldn’t help but cry at the fact that her mom left her. After, she found out that her mom left T-Ray but it still didn’t make up for the fact that she left Lily behind as well. It hurt Lily that her mom left her with T.Ray and a neighbor, but when she saw a picture of her mom feeding her a big smile on her face, that sign was what she asked for all along, it showed her that her mom actually did love her.

            Rosaleen, once again tried to get her voters card and this time she actually succeeded in doing it. Lily, at first was angered by Rosaleen’s decision to try again because it was what brought them to Tiburon, South Carolina all along. She thought of why Rosaleen would ever do such thing as to endanger their protection in a small quiet neighborhood away from all the trouble.

            After, August and Rosaleen went out and August showed Lily what a queen less colony of bees would look like. She gave her a lot of advice on how to never give up and to always remember that you don’t need the statue of Mary to help you because you always have Mary in your heart, all you need to do it to look into yourself to find the hope that you need. This gave lily the security that she needed.

            A while later, a knock came at the door and she didn’t bother opening it because she was to busying writing in a new book that Zach left her by the door. When she finally opened the door, it was her father T.Ray standing at the door, talk about suspense! He found her from the collect call she made from Mr. Clayton’s office and with the help of his old secretary. He asked her why she was at these colored people’s house and when she explained how this was where her mother came after she left him, combined with the blue whale pin she was wearing that belonged to her mother, she started to beat her. The only thing that stopped him was when she said “daddy” that he noticed it was Lily and not his wife Deborah and all he had to say about it was that she looked just like her. He told her to come with him back home but she refused and he just left. Right when he was driving away she ran after him and asked him what really happened the day her mom died and he told her that she killed her mom, even though it was by accident. She had a good life after with the Boatwright family and others, but she couldn’t help but wonder when T.Ray would send her a gift saying “I love you”, but all she could do was wait and see.

Quote:

“I have more mothers than any eight girls off the street. They are the moons shining over me”( Kidd 302).

Reaction:
Even though throughout the whole book Lily was in search for who her mom was and was trying to fill in that empty whole she had inside that was left for the nurturing of the mother, at the end of the novel she knew that even though the people she met at Tiburon might not be her biological mothers, but they are the people who love and care for her and that’s exactly what a mother is, and she was very thankful for having them in her life.

The Secret Life of Bees 151-200

After she fainted during her time out with August they came back into the house because they thought the fainting spell might have been caused by her being hungry. When they ate as much as they could eat, Zach who was also eating dinner with them got up and went to go deliver some honey to Clayton Forrest’s office. Clayton Forrest was a lawyer who allowed Zach to look through some of his cases because Zach was an aspiring lawyer. Lily asked if she could go with Zach, even though they refused at first they eventually gave in into letting her go.

When they got to Claytons office, Zach introduced her to the people and you could tell that they were quite surprised that a young white girl would be staying with a black family. Mr. Forrest and Zach went into the room to discuss some cases. Lily to this time to call her father and talk to him. When he answered the phone, the first thing that he said to her was “Lily, where the hell are you”. He kept asking her many questions about where she was and told her about how much trouble she was in. The only thing that Lily asked T.Ray was if he knew her favorite color. He was very angry with the question that she gave him and told her that he was going to whip her when he found her and she hung up. She then decided to write a letter to T.Ray just so she could vent all the anger she had toward him and then proceeded to rip it up.

After she came home, a few days later she was in the kitchen and she noticed May making a trail of graham cracker crumbs and marshmallows to guide the roaches out of the house instead of killing them. She remember what T.Ray said about how her mother used to do the exact same thing. When she asked May if she knew her, May said she did and it caused her to have one of those crying fits that cause her to go out to the Wailing Wall. Lily thought of what might have happened to her mother that caused that reaction from May.

The next Friday Lily and Zach went out into the town. She noticed that when they got to town there were many whites standing outside waiting for this white man to show up with this colored women. When Zach’s friends came they started causing trouble and one of them even threw a bottle at a white man’s nose causing it to start bleeding. When none of the boys confessed about how threw the bottle they all ended up going to jail and Lily ended up having to walk all the way home by herself. When she came home she saw everyone in the family sitting around in a circle talking with very sad and angry looks on their faces. They visited Zach in the jail and you could see it was a very horrible place to be in. It smelled and Lily wasn’t evened welcomed in because of the color of her skin. They let her in because of her saying that she was a family friend. When she and August saw Zach, Lily was quiet and the other two did all the talking. The only thing Lily said to Zach was that she would write everything in the book that he gave her.
 Of course, they hid everything from May because of her disorder. But one day, when the phone rang and she answered it she found out the truth from Zach’s mother. When May found out she was very silent and fainted. When she woke up again she asked for some time alone at her wall. Almost an hour past and they went out searching for her. Just then they found her, not at the Wailing Wall, but face down in a nearby river.

Quote:

"that you shouldn"t be ... well, lowering yourself"(Kidd 198).

Reaction:

           This quote shows how the officer who was interviewing Lily when May died was not familiar or ok with the fact that a young white girl was staying with an african american family. He actually thought that she was lowering her status by doing so. I think that his view of this matter is based on his opinion that is influenced by where he lives and the time period this was going on in.

The Secret Life of Bees 91-151

Summary:

As Lily is still staying at the house of August Boatwright and her sisters, she gets settled in with her daily life there. She is welcomed into everything that they did, and she was given responsibilities that she had to fulfill such as working in the Bee houses. One day while she and August were sitting out on the porch she looked out into the forest where she remembered seeing a stone wall that had a lot of papers around it. August informed her by saying that the wall belonged to May and that she used it to vent out her problems. May was not one of the ordinary people. She had a problem where every time she saw or heard about something sad she would start saying ,singing or humming a song called “oh Susanna” and she would just have a fit. The only thing that would help her was her wall which they called the “wailing wall”, just like the one in Jerusalem

Afterward, Lily and the rest of the sisters had a special service at their house instead of going to church on that Sunday. August who loves telling stories, told another about Mary (Jesus’s mother). It was really touching to all of the people that were there. They proceeded to touch this statue of their “lady of chains” which was the black version of Mary. All of the people touched its heart, and just as Lily was about to touch it, June who was August’s sister stopped playing the music. Lily stood their alone with her hand stretched out, not moving any closer. It brought back all of the memories of the rejection she faced. She fainted. Just by June doing that to her, she felt as if she was reminding her how she wasn’t one of them. And that added to all the pain that Lily was already tugging around. 

After that horrible day, she woke up and counted how many days she had been staying at the Boatwright’s house. Eight days, and she prayed that there would be more. This was when she met Zach. Zach was a young black boy who was a junior in high school. He came over to August’s house to help her around with “Bee Patrol”. Once they started talking, Lily knew that she wanted to be good friends with this boy. She started to develop some feelings for him and vice versa. He brought her a gift one day and told her that he liked her but she had to know that there were people in this world that would kill black boys that even looked at white girls.

The month of August came and it was obviously August (the person’s) favorite. She and Lily were working on putting labels on the honey jars. She asked Lily “what do you love”. It was amazing because no one ever asked Lily that question and she had never really thought of it. When she answered the question, Lily found out that she and August had many things in common that they would have never thought. As soon as they were done they went on “Bee Patrol” and learned lots of new things about bees. The only thing that ruined it was when she became so overwhelmed from her feelings and she fainted, once again.

Quote:

 “How come we couldn’t go back and fix the bad things we did” (Kidd 151).

Reaction:

Lily is becoming very frustrated with her life. She feels desperate and hopeless that she will not be able to do anything about the way her life is running. We all wish that we could just go back and change all the things that we don’t like about our life. But since that’s impossible, we just have to figure out a way to get over that and make changes for the better.