Theoretical Framework REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

20 and articles that are related with the study. The secondary source supported the first primary source to make the study more convincing. There are some steps in library study. The first step started with reading the novel. I read the novel repeatedly because it helps a lot in understanding and imagining the story. After that I continued with choosing the topic. I was interested in collecting the words, expressions, sentences, things, signs and also the phenomena that happened in the story. Then, I decided to do brainstorming before I formulated down research questions. The second step was to read information from related references. It helped to find the theory of literature that is suitable with the study. The information from articles, books, dictionaries and also encyclopedia that are related with the study gathered to support the explanation of symbol. Reading and analyzing the novel were the third step was the third step in the research. Reading carefully was important thing to clarify and accurate the data with the study. Finding the theory became crucial because in that part the theory could answer the problem formulation or not. The theory should be relevant to answer the research problems. The last step was to summarize all the findings in the conclusion. All explanations served with description. It was caused by the study that used the formalist approach so that the study was a qualitative study. 21

CHAPTER IV ANALYSIS

This chapter consists of two parts. First is the identification of the symbols which appear in Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees. The identification of symbol is completed by some theories which connect with the definition of symbol, characteristic of symbol and types of symbol. Second is about the meanings of the symbols related to the theme in Sue Monk Kidds The Secret Life of Bees. It is also completed by some of the theories which connect with interpreting the symbol, and the function of symbol. The analysis is also supported by the reasonable interpretation and evidence whether they give special strength from The Secret Life of Bees in the analysis.

A. Identification of the Symbols

There are two symbols that are related to the theme in Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees. The first symbol is bees. The second symbol is Black Madonna. 1. Bees as the Symbols The bees appear in the novel as symbols because of these following reasons. First, bees appear repeatedly throughout the novel. In Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees, bees appear as some epigraphs in every chapter of the story. According to Cambridge Dictionary, epigraph is “a saying or a part of a poem, play or book put at the beginning of writing to give the reader some idea of