Halfway Post

 

Picture from aceshowbiz.com

 

Describe a problem faced by the main character. Explain how the main character deals with the problem. Make a personal connection to this (either your own experience or that of someone you know).

The main character in the novel “The Secret Life of Bees” is a 14 year old girl named Lily Owens. Lily has faced living an isolated, lonely life, and has a father that is abusive. At the young age of four years old Lily accidently kills her mother Deborah. Lily is longing to have that role of mother figure in her life and to feel maternal love. She chooses to run away from home with her black housekeeper Rosaleen to a small town named Tiburon in South Carolina. They end up at the home of August Bowright, who is a black woman that lives with her two sisters on a 28 acre farm doing bee keeping. The Bowright sisters make Rosaleen and Lily feel welcome and help Lily to overcome her past so she can move forward with her life, and become a confident, mature young lady. Lily soon considers August Bowright to be like her surrogate mother, and someone she can look up to. I know someone who didn’t have the best childhood growing up, which can be difficult. Since the upbringings and experiences with life affect the outlook on life.  By learning how to let things go of the past is the only way to move forwards with one’s life.

“People who think dying is the worst thing don’t know a thing about life” Lily pg 2

(An important quote Lily made since her life has been affected greatly due to her mother’s death)

Write your opinion of a character's action or reaction to a situation in the book. Do you think it was the appropriate course of action and would you have done the same? Why/Why not?

Rosaleen the housekeeper and Lily make their way into town oneday, so Rosaleen can register her vote. Rosaleen gets taunted by three white men, and she spills the contents of her snuff jar on their feet. She gets beaten by the men until the police show up, and take her and Lily to jail. At the jail cell the police demand she apologizes for her actions. When she forbids to say sorry, she gets hit over the head with a heavy flashlight. Lily’s father T-Ray picks Lily up from the jail, leaving Rosaleen to get further beaten by the police, and then taken to the hospital. Soon after the incident Lily decides to run away from home, and gets Rosaleen at the hospital and they flee to Tiburon. In my opinion even though it must have been very tough for Rosaleen to say sorry, since the men were actually in the wrong not her, it would have saved her from getting beaten and hit in the head. If I was put in that situation, I would have said sorry just to cause less drama, and from not getting beaten, even though knowing that I’m the one who should be accepting the apology, not the one apologizing.

“Please God. I didn’t mean to treat her like a pet dog. I was trying to save her. That’s all” Lily said. Pg 54

(Lily says this quote in her mind as her and Rosaleen make their way to Tiburon. Rosaleen makes an inaccurate comment of how Lily treats her like an African American, and not as a mother figure that she has been for her.)