Analysis of The Portrayal of The Protagonist of Sue Monk Kidd's 'The Secret Life of Bees'.
ABSTRACT
Dalam tugas akhir ini, saya menganalisa penggambaran tokoh utama
dalam sebuah novel karya Sue Monk Kidd yang berjudul The Secret Life of Bees.
Tokoh utama dalam novel ini adalah seorang remaja perempuan bernama Lily
Melissa Owens yang mengalami perubahan karakter dalam perjalanannya menuju
kedewasaan.
Perubahan karakter yang dialami oleh Lily dalam novel ini tidak terlepas
dari peranan komunitasnya. Di awal cerita, Lily dikisahkan hidup di dalam sebuah
komunitas di mana ia tidak pernah mendapatkan bimbingan dan penerimaan baik
dari ayahnya maupun teman-temannya. Akibatnya, Lily tumbuh menjadi seorang
anak yang naif, penuh penyesalan, tidak percaya diri dan tidak memiliki
keberanian dalam menentukan pilihan hidupnya.
Setelah Lily melarikan diri dari rumahnya dan masuk ke dalam sebuah
komunitas terdiri dari orang-orang kulit hitam yang mampu memberikannya
bimbingan dan penerimaan, ia mengalami perubahan karakter menjadi seorang
anak yang lebih bijaksana, percaya diri dan berani menentukan pilihan hidupnya.
Melalui perubahan karakter tokoh utama dari novel ini, terlihat bahwa
Kidd ingin menekankan pentingnya peran komunitas dalam mendukung
perkembangan karakter seseorang menuju kedewasaan.
ii
Maranatha Christian University
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
TABLE OF CONTENTS ..............................................................................
i
ABSTRACT ...................................................................................................
ii
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study .....................................................................
Statements of the Problem ...................................................................
Purpose of the Study ...........................................................................
Method of Research ............................................................................
Organization of the Thesis ..................................................................
1
3
4
4
4
CHAPTER TWO: ANALYSIS OF THE PORTRAYAL
OF THE PROTAGONIST OF SUE MONK KIDD’S
THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES ........................................................
5
CHAPTER THREE: CONCLUSION .........................................................
22
BIBLIOGRAPHY .........................................................................................
25
APPENDICES
Synopsis of The Secret Life of Bees ....................................................
Biography of Sue Monk Kidd .............................................................
27
28
i
Maranatha Christian University
APPENDICES
Synopsis of The Secret Life of Bees
Lily is a fourteen-year-old girl who lives with an abusive father, T. Ray,
after her mother, Deborah, has died when Lily is four.
When Lily accompanies Rosaleen, her African-American maid who wants
to register herself to vote, some racist men appear and assault Rosaleen. The
police come and arrest Rosaleen. Knowing that T. Ray will not free Rosaleen,
Lily decides to run away to be free from T. Ray and free Rosaleen from the jail.
They go to August’s house, where Lily’s mother used to live in the past.
At August’s house, Lily finds a new community who accepts her warmly.
They treat her as their own family. She also learns a lot of things about life and
develops her skills in writing and beekeeping.
August tells Lily that Deborah once leaves her before coming back again
to take Lily out of T. Ray’s house, but she accidentally dies. Feeling abandoned,
Lily hates her mother. August, who loves Lily, gives her time to reflect. Finally,
Lily understands that no one is perfect so that she wants to forgive her mother.
Later on, T. Ray manages to find Lily and violently forces her to return
home. As Lily feels comfortable living at August’s house, she asserts that she
wants to stay there. Finally, T. Ray lets Lily stay in August’s house.
27
Biography of Sue Monk Kidd
Sue Monk Kidd was born on August 12, 1948 in Sylvester, Georgia. The
fact that her father often told her many tales when she was still a child has
influenced her to be a writer.
The cultural climate of the 1960s left her feel uncertain about her career
choice. By the age of sixteen, she decided to pursue a nursing career instead and
graduated with a B. S. Degree in nursing from Texas Christian University in 1970.
Then she became a nursing instructor at the Medical College of Georgia in her
twenties. During that time, she met Sandy Kidd then got married. The couple have
two children.
In her thirties, Kidd finally joined writing classes because she still had her
old desire to become a writer. She also became a freelance writer of nonfiction
articles and biographies as well as a Contributing Editor at Guideposts magazine
for several years.
In the 1980s, her two nonfiction books, God’s Joyful Surprise: Finding
Yourself Loved and All Things are Possible, were published. In 1994, She wrote a
short story titled The Secret Life of Bees that later became a novel published in
2002. The novel receives numerous awards. In 2005, she wrote The Mermaid
Chair that won a lot of awards as well. Her newest memoir, Traveling with
Pomegranates: A Mother-Daughter Story, co-authored with her daughter, Ann
Kidd Taylor, was published in 2009.
Now, Kidd lives beside a salt marsh near Charleston, South Carolina with
her husband and a black Labrador.
Source: “Biography of Sue Monk Kidd (1948-)”
28
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study
Bildungsroman is a German literary term for a genre of novel which
focuses on development of the protagonist. From Online Etymology Dictionary,
Bildung can be defined as “education, formation, growth” while Roman means
“novel” (“Bildungsroman”). An article mentions that Bildungsroman is a “novel
of education” or a “novel of formation” (“Bildungsroman”). As a novel of
education, Bildungsroman has the main purpose to show its reader learning
process of the protagonist from his or her development. The protagonist in this
genre of novel is usually portrayed as a young man or woman. The protagonist’s
characteristic begins to develop after he or she learns about moral values through
his or her experience in life. During his or her learning experience, the protagonist
is able to develop his or her mindset that supports his or her characteristic
development toward maturity (“Bildungsroman”). Maturity is “the time or state
when someone or something is fully grown or developed” (“Maturity”). Through
1
Maranatha Christian University
maturation process that the protagonist experiences, he or she usually becomes a
better person at the end of the story.
Sue Monk Kidd is a notable American writer who is best known for her
Bildungsroman, The Secret Life of Bees, which was published in 2002 (“The
Secret Life of Bees”). Having taken a writing course in Emory University, one of
the best universities in United States, she developed her writing skills and wrote
short stories which received several awards (“About Sue Monk Kidd”). Being
successful in writing short story, she wrote nonfiction and fiction which also gain
success because of the inspiring stories within them. Some of her nonfiction
works are When the Heart Waits (1990) and Traveling with Pomegranates (2009)
while some of her fiction works are The Mermaid Chair (2005) and The Invention
of Wings (2014).
Kidd is a writer who lives in the postmodern period of literature, which
began in the 1940s. The story of postmodern novel is often about “quest for
understanding the self, finding a grasp of one’s place in the world” (Sorondo). In
relation to characteristic development in Bildungsroman, understanding the self is
one of the results that the protagonist achieves after development.
In this thesis I choose to analyze one of her novels; The Secret Life of
Bees, set in Sylvan, South Carolina, United States, in 1964. In the novel, the
protagonist is Lily Melissa Owens, a motherless fourteen-year-old girl. She lives
with her abusive father, Terrence Ray Owens, and her African-American maid,
Rosaleen Daise. In school, Lily is alienated by her peers. After an incident, Lily
and Rosaleen go to Tiburon, where Lily gets acquainted with a new community,
consists of August Boatwright, the Daughters of Mary and Zachary Lincoln
2
Maranatha Christian University
Taylor. They give Lily acceptance, guidance and encouragement which help her
characteristics to gradually develop. At the end of the story, Lily becomes a better
person.
As a bestselling novel, The Secret Life of Bees has been successfully
adapted into an award-winning movie. Since its publication, the novel has “found
a wide readership and [has] received much critical acclaim” (“The Secret Life of
Bees”). The novel also becomes a phenomenon after being sold “more than 6
million copies” (“About Sue Monk Kidd”) and listed by Barnes and Noble as “the
sixth bestselling book of the decade” (“Sue Monk Kidd”). In addition, this book is
“taught widely now in high school and college classroom” (“About Sue Monk
Kidd”).
The literary element that I choose to analyze from this novel is the
portrayal of the protagonist. Protagonist by definition is “the central character in
the conflict, whether he be a sympathetic or an unsympathetic person” (Perrine
44). The protagonist in the novel is a dynamic character who goes through
development and becomes a better person at the end of the story. A dynamic
character is defined as a character who “undergoes a permanent change in some
aspect of his character, personality, or outlook.” (71)
Statement of the Problem
After reading the novel, there are some things I would like to discuss:
1.
How is the protagonist portrayed in the novel?
2.
What is the purpose of the author by creating such a character?
3
Maranatha Christian University
Purpose of the Study
The purposes of writing this thesis are:
1.
To see how the protagonist is portrayed in the novel.
2.
To understand the purpose of the author by creating such a character.
Method of Research
The method I use is library research. I start by reading the novel, The
Secret Life of Bees. Then I analyze the novel by using formalism. I take some
references and resources from the Internet and books to support the analysis and
assist me in writing the thesis. Finally, I draw a conclusion from my analysis.
Organization of the Thesis
The
thesis
is
divided
into
three
chapters,
preceded
by
the
Acknowledgements, the Table of Contents and the Abstract. In the first chapter, I
present the Introduction, which contains the Background of the Study, the
Statement of the Problem, the Purpose of the Study, the Method of Research and
the Organization of the Thesis. The second chapter is the Portrayal of the
Protagonist of Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees. The third chapter is the
Conclusion. The thesis ends with the Bibliography and the Appendices, which
include the Synopsis of the Novel and the Biography of the Author.
4
Maranatha Christian University
CHAPTER THREE
CONCLUSION
After analyzing the portrayal of Lily Melissa Owens of Sue Monk Kidd’s
The Secret Life of Bees, I would like to draw some conclusions. After Lily’s
characteristics develop in a positive way, she becomes a better person at the end
of the story.
Lily’s development is influenced by the absence and the existence of
guidance, acceptance and encouragement in her community. In the novel, there
are two communities that Lily lives with. The first one is the community in
Sylvan, South Carolina, consisting of her father, Terrence Ray Owens, and her
peers in school. The second one is the community in Tiburon, South Carolina,
where Lily lives after she runs away from her house in Sylvan. The community in
Tiburon is an African-American community, consisting of August Boatwright, the
Daughters of Mary and Zachary Lincoln Taylor.
Lily does not get guidance, acceptance and encouragement from her father and her
peers. Without the guidance on human’s imperfection, Lily becomes a naïve
person who cannot accept and understand her mother’s imperfection. Lily also
22
Maranatha Christian University
becomes a remorseful person who does not know how to overcome her regret for
being the cause of her mother’s death.
Lily never gets acceptance from her father and her peers in school.
Without acceptance from them, Lily cannot acknowledge her own value which
makes her become an insecure person. She shows insecurity about her looks and
about being herself in the community.
Moreover, Lily does not get encouragement to stand for herself, especially
when she is treated inconsiderately by her father. As a result, she becomes a
compliant person. She is being compliant not only toward her father’s abuses at
home but also to the bullying that she receives from her peers.
In Tiburon, Lily gets acquainted with a new community, consists of
August, the Daughters of Mary and Zach. Lily receives guidance from August
about human’s imperfection and about uselessness of regret so that she becomes
wiser about her view on her mother’s imperfection and on dealing with her regret.
Lily finally decides to forgive her mother for leaving her in the past and forgive
herself for being the cause of her mother’s death.
Lily also gets acceptance from the Daughters of Mary and Zach. They
value Lily as a part of their lives. Acknowledging her value in others’ lives, Lily
gets confidence on herself so that she becomes secure about both her appearance
and about being herself in the community.
In addition, Lily gets encouragement from August to stand up for herself
when she is treated inconsiderately by others. Therefore, she becomes incompliant.
The fact that she is able to make her own choice and also ready to face the
consequence, shows that she becomes incompliant. Guidance, acceptance and
23
Maranatha Christian University
encouragement that Lily receives from August, the Daughters of Mary and Zach
have made Lily’s characteristics able to develop in a positive way.
Through the portrayal of Lily and her development, I conclude that Kidd
wants to show the reader not only the importance of guidance, acceptance and
encouragement to develop one’s characteristics but also role of community in
building one’s characteristics. Community is important in one’s development in
consideration that humans are social creatures who live in a community and
interact regularly with each other. They learn about life mostly from their
communities, especially for young people like the protagonist who does not have
much experience in life and still rely on other people in shaping her perspectives.
This is why community has an important role in building one’s characteristics.
Both communities in the novel consist of parents and peers. Parents do not
necessarily have to be biological father and mother. They can be elder people who
are capable of being a parental figure for someone. From the protagonist’s both
communities, I find that Kidd considers parents and peers as people who have the
most influence in shaping young people’s characteristic. Parents should be role
model for their children. Good communication is also needed so that parents are
able to guide and encourage their children as August does to Lily. Peers also have
important role in shaping people’s behavior. Most of young people spend their
time with their peers while they are outside their home. Lily learns about how she
has to act when she is together with her peers in order to get acceptance from
them. From the novel, I get that peers have to respect each other’s differences so
that each person is able to act the way he or she is.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Primary Text
Kidd, Sue Monk. The Secret Life of Bees. New York: Penguin Books, 2002. Print.
References
“About Sue Monk Kidd”. Sue Monk Kidd. N.p, n.d. Web. 11 Mar. 2013.
“Bildungsroman”. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica
Inc., 2013. Web. 23 Oct. 2013.
“Bildungsroman”. Online Etymology Dictionary. Douglas Harper, 2014. Web. 20
Feb. 2014.
“Biography of Sue Monk Kidd (1948-)”. GradeSaver. GradeSaver LLC, 2013.
Web. 23 Mar. 2013.
“Compliant”. Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English. Pearson Education
Limited, 2014. 3 Mar. 2014.
“Incompliant”. Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, 2014. Web. 4 Jun. 2014.
“Insecure”. Def. 1. Collins English Dictionary. Haper Collins Publishers, 2013.
Web. 22 Sep. 2013.
“Maturity”. Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English. Pearson Education
Limited, 2013. Web. 7 Des. 2013.
“Naïve”. Oxford Dictionaries. Oxford University Press, 2014. Web. 17 Feb. 2014.
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Perrine, Laurence. Story and Structure. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich,
1974. Print.
“Remorseful”. Oxford Dictionaries. Oxford University Press, 2014. Web. 14 Apr.
2014.
“Secure”. Oxford Dictionaries. Oxford University Press, 2013. Web. 24 May.
2013.
“Sue Monk Kidd”. Lyceum Agency. Lyceum Agency LLC, 2011. Web. 10 Mar.
2013.
“The Secret Life of Bees”. SparkNotes. SparkNotes LLC, 2013. Web. 28 Aug.
2013.
Sorondo, Alex. “What is Postmodern Literature?”. Examiner.com. Clarity Digital
Group LLC, 2014. Web. 5 Jun. 2014.
“Wise”. Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, 2014. Web. 3 Mar. 2014.
26
Maranatha Christian University
Dalam tugas akhir ini, saya menganalisa penggambaran tokoh utama
dalam sebuah novel karya Sue Monk Kidd yang berjudul The Secret Life of Bees.
Tokoh utama dalam novel ini adalah seorang remaja perempuan bernama Lily
Melissa Owens yang mengalami perubahan karakter dalam perjalanannya menuju
kedewasaan.
Perubahan karakter yang dialami oleh Lily dalam novel ini tidak terlepas
dari peranan komunitasnya. Di awal cerita, Lily dikisahkan hidup di dalam sebuah
komunitas di mana ia tidak pernah mendapatkan bimbingan dan penerimaan baik
dari ayahnya maupun teman-temannya. Akibatnya, Lily tumbuh menjadi seorang
anak yang naif, penuh penyesalan, tidak percaya diri dan tidak memiliki
keberanian dalam menentukan pilihan hidupnya.
Setelah Lily melarikan diri dari rumahnya dan masuk ke dalam sebuah
komunitas terdiri dari orang-orang kulit hitam yang mampu memberikannya
bimbingan dan penerimaan, ia mengalami perubahan karakter menjadi seorang
anak yang lebih bijaksana, percaya diri dan berani menentukan pilihan hidupnya.
Melalui perubahan karakter tokoh utama dari novel ini, terlihat bahwa
Kidd ingin menekankan pentingnya peran komunitas dalam mendukung
perkembangan karakter seseorang menuju kedewasaan.
ii
Maranatha Christian University
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
TABLE OF CONTENTS ..............................................................................
i
ABSTRACT ...................................................................................................
ii
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study .....................................................................
Statements of the Problem ...................................................................
Purpose of the Study ...........................................................................
Method of Research ............................................................................
Organization of the Thesis ..................................................................
1
3
4
4
4
CHAPTER TWO: ANALYSIS OF THE PORTRAYAL
OF THE PROTAGONIST OF SUE MONK KIDD’S
THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES ........................................................
5
CHAPTER THREE: CONCLUSION .........................................................
22
BIBLIOGRAPHY .........................................................................................
25
APPENDICES
Synopsis of The Secret Life of Bees ....................................................
Biography of Sue Monk Kidd .............................................................
27
28
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Maranatha Christian University
APPENDICES
Synopsis of The Secret Life of Bees
Lily is a fourteen-year-old girl who lives with an abusive father, T. Ray,
after her mother, Deborah, has died when Lily is four.
When Lily accompanies Rosaleen, her African-American maid who wants
to register herself to vote, some racist men appear and assault Rosaleen. The
police come and arrest Rosaleen. Knowing that T. Ray will not free Rosaleen,
Lily decides to run away to be free from T. Ray and free Rosaleen from the jail.
They go to August’s house, where Lily’s mother used to live in the past.
At August’s house, Lily finds a new community who accepts her warmly.
They treat her as their own family. She also learns a lot of things about life and
develops her skills in writing and beekeeping.
August tells Lily that Deborah once leaves her before coming back again
to take Lily out of T. Ray’s house, but she accidentally dies. Feeling abandoned,
Lily hates her mother. August, who loves Lily, gives her time to reflect. Finally,
Lily understands that no one is perfect so that she wants to forgive her mother.
Later on, T. Ray manages to find Lily and violently forces her to return
home. As Lily feels comfortable living at August’s house, she asserts that she
wants to stay there. Finally, T. Ray lets Lily stay in August’s house.
27
Biography of Sue Monk Kidd
Sue Monk Kidd was born on August 12, 1948 in Sylvester, Georgia. The
fact that her father often told her many tales when she was still a child has
influenced her to be a writer.
The cultural climate of the 1960s left her feel uncertain about her career
choice. By the age of sixteen, she decided to pursue a nursing career instead and
graduated with a B. S. Degree in nursing from Texas Christian University in 1970.
Then she became a nursing instructor at the Medical College of Georgia in her
twenties. During that time, she met Sandy Kidd then got married. The couple have
two children.
In her thirties, Kidd finally joined writing classes because she still had her
old desire to become a writer. She also became a freelance writer of nonfiction
articles and biographies as well as a Contributing Editor at Guideposts magazine
for several years.
In the 1980s, her two nonfiction books, God’s Joyful Surprise: Finding
Yourself Loved and All Things are Possible, were published. In 1994, She wrote a
short story titled The Secret Life of Bees that later became a novel published in
2002. The novel receives numerous awards. In 2005, she wrote The Mermaid
Chair that won a lot of awards as well. Her newest memoir, Traveling with
Pomegranates: A Mother-Daughter Story, co-authored with her daughter, Ann
Kidd Taylor, was published in 2009.
Now, Kidd lives beside a salt marsh near Charleston, South Carolina with
her husband and a black Labrador.
Source: “Biography of Sue Monk Kidd (1948-)”
28
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study
Bildungsroman is a German literary term for a genre of novel which
focuses on development of the protagonist. From Online Etymology Dictionary,
Bildung can be defined as “education, formation, growth” while Roman means
“novel” (“Bildungsroman”). An article mentions that Bildungsroman is a “novel
of education” or a “novel of formation” (“Bildungsroman”). As a novel of
education, Bildungsroman has the main purpose to show its reader learning
process of the protagonist from his or her development. The protagonist in this
genre of novel is usually portrayed as a young man or woman. The protagonist’s
characteristic begins to develop after he or she learns about moral values through
his or her experience in life. During his or her learning experience, the protagonist
is able to develop his or her mindset that supports his or her characteristic
development toward maturity (“Bildungsroman”). Maturity is “the time or state
when someone or something is fully grown or developed” (“Maturity”). Through
1
Maranatha Christian University
maturation process that the protagonist experiences, he or she usually becomes a
better person at the end of the story.
Sue Monk Kidd is a notable American writer who is best known for her
Bildungsroman, The Secret Life of Bees, which was published in 2002 (“The
Secret Life of Bees”). Having taken a writing course in Emory University, one of
the best universities in United States, she developed her writing skills and wrote
short stories which received several awards (“About Sue Monk Kidd”). Being
successful in writing short story, she wrote nonfiction and fiction which also gain
success because of the inspiring stories within them. Some of her nonfiction
works are When the Heart Waits (1990) and Traveling with Pomegranates (2009)
while some of her fiction works are The Mermaid Chair (2005) and The Invention
of Wings (2014).
Kidd is a writer who lives in the postmodern period of literature, which
began in the 1940s. The story of postmodern novel is often about “quest for
understanding the self, finding a grasp of one’s place in the world” (Sorondo). In
relation to characteristic development in Bildungsroman, understanding the self is
one of the results that the protagonist achieves after development.
In this thesis I choose to analyze one of her novels; The Secret Life of
Bees, set in Sylvan, South Carolina, United States, in 1964. In the novel, the
protagonist is Lily Melissa Owens, a motherless fourteen-year-old girl. She lives
with her abusive father, Terrence Ray Owens, and her African-American maid,
Rosaleen Daise. In school, Lily is alienated by her peers. After an incident, Lily
and Rosaleen go to Tiburon, where Lily gets acquainted with a new community,
consists of August Boatwright, the Daughters of Mary and Zachary Lincoln
2
Maranatha Christian University
Taylor. They give Lily acceptance, guidance and encouragement which help her
characteristics to gradually develop. At the end of the story, Lily becomes a better
person.
As a bestselling novel, The Secret Life of Bees has been successfully
adapted into an award-winning movie. Since its publication, the novel has “found
a wide readership and [has] received much critical acclaim” (“The Secret Life of
Bees”). The novel also becomes a phenomenon after being sold “more than 6
million copies” (“About Sue Monk Kidd”) and listed by Barnes and Noble as “the
sixth bestselling book of the decade” (“Sue Monk Kidd”). In addition, this book is
“taught widely now in high school and college classroom” (“About Sue Monk
Kidd”).
The literary element that I choose to analyze from this novel is the
portrayal of the protagonist. Protagonist by definition is “the central character in
the conflict, whether he be a sympathetic or an unsympathetic person” (Perrine
44). The protagonist in the novel is a dynamic character who goes through
development and becomes a better person at the end of the story. A dynamic
character is defined as a character who “undergoes a permanent change in some
aspect of his character, personality, or outlook.” (71)
Statement of the Problem
After reading the novel, there are some things I would like to discuss:
1.
How is the protagonist portrayed in the novel?
2.
What is the purpose of the author by creating such a character?
3
Maranatha Christian University
Purpose of the Study
The purposes of writing this thesis are:
1.
To see how the protagonist is portrayed in the novel.
2.
To understand the purpose of the author by creating such a character.
Method of Research
The method I use is library research. I start by reading the novel, The
Secret Life of Bees. Then I analyze the novel by using formalism. I take some
references and resources from the Internet and books to support the analysis and
assist me in writing the thesis. Finally, I draw a conclusion from my analysis.
Organization of the Thesis
The
thesis
is
divided
into
three
chapters,
preceded
by
the
Acknowledgements, the Table of Contents and the Abstract. In the first chapter, I
present the Introduction, which contains the Background of the Study, the
Statement of the Problem, the Purpose of the Study, the Method of Research and
the Organization of the Thesis. The second chapter is the Portrayal of the
Protagonist of Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees. The third chapter is the
Conclusion. The thesis ends with the Bibliography and the Appendices, which
include the Synopsis of the Novel and the Biography of the Author.
4
Maranatha Christian University
CHAPTER THREE
CONCLUSION
After analyzing the portrayal of Lily Melissa Owens of Sue Monk Kidd’s
The Secret Life of Bees, I would like to draw some conclusions. After Lily’s
characteristics develop in a positive way, she becomes a better person at the end
of the story.
Lily’s development is influenced by the absence and the existence of
guidance, acceptance and encouragement in her community. In the novel, there
are two communities that Lily lives with. The first one is the community in
Sylvan, South Carolina, consisting of her father, Terrence Ray Owens, and her
peers in school. The second one is the community in Tiburon, South Carolina,
where Lily lives after she runs away from her house in Sylvan. The community in
Tiburon is an African-American community, consisting of August Boatwright, the
Daughters of Mary and Zachary Lincoln Taylor.
Lily does not get guidance, acceptance and encouragement from her father and her
peers. Without the guidance on human’s imperfection, Lily becomes a naïve
person who cannot accept and understand her mother’s imperfection. Lily also
22
Maranatha Christian University
becomes a remorseful person who does not know how to overcome her regret for
being the cause of her mother’s death.
Lily never gets acceptance from her father and her peers in school.
Without acceptance from them, Lily cannot acknowledge her own value which
makes her become an insecure person. She shows insecurity about her looks and
about being herself in the community.
Moreover, Lily does not get encouragement to stand for herself, especially
when she is treated inconsiderately by her father. As a result, she becomes a
compliant person. She is being compliant not only toward her father’s abuses at
home but also to the bullying that she receives from her peers.
In Tiburon, Lily gets acquainted with a new community, consists of
August, the Daughters of Mary and Zach. Lily receives guidance from August
about human’s imperfection and about uselessness of regret so that she becomes
wiser about her view on her mother’s imperfection and on dealing with her regret.
Lily finally decides to forgive her mother for leaving her in the past and forgive
herself for being the cause of her mother’s death.
Lily also gets acceptance from the Daughters of Mary and Zach. They
value Lily as a part of their lives. Acknowledging her value in others’ lives, Lily
gets confidence on herself so that she becomes secure about both her appearance
and about being herself in the community.
In addition, Lily gets encouragement from August to stand up for herself
when she is treated inconsiderately by others. Therefore, she becomes incompliant.
The fact that she is able to make her own choice and also ready to face the
consequence, shows that she becomes incompliant. Guidance, acceptance and
23
Maranatha Christian University
encouragement that Lily receives from August, the Daughters of Mary and Zach
have made Lily’s characteristics able to develop in a positive way.
Through the portrayal of Lily and her development, I conclude that Kidd
wants to show the reader not only the importance of guidance, acceptance and
encouragement to develop one’s characteristics but also role of community in
building one’s characteristics. Community is important in one’s development in
consideration that humans are social creatures who live in a community and
interact regularly with each other. They learn about life mostly from their
communities, especially for young people like the protagonist who does not have
much experience in life and still rely on other people in shaping her perspectives.
This is why community has an important role in building one’s characteristics.
Both communities in the novel consist of parents and peers. Parents do not
necessarily have to be biological father and mother. They can be elder people who
are capable of being a parental figure for someone. From the protagonist’s both
communities, I find that Kidd considers parents and peers as people who have the
most influence in shaping young people’s characteristic. Parents should be role
model for their children. Good communication is also needed so that parents are
able to guide and encourage their children as August does to Lily. Peers also have
important role in shaping people’s behavior. Most of young people spend their
time with their peers while they are outside their home. Lily learns about how she
has to act when she is together with her peers in order to get acceptance from
them. From the novel, I get that peers have to respect each other’s differences so
that each person is able to act the way he or she is.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Primary Text
Kidd, Sue Monk. The Secret Life of Bees. New York: Penguin Books, 2002. Print.
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Perrine, Laurence. Story and Structure. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich,
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