Often, in some stories, authors give their characters pasts which prominently affect their present lives and behaviors. This is true in Sue Monk Kidd’s novel “The Secret Life of Bees” as the protagonist Lily Owens is haunted and motivated by the memory of how she killed her own mother at age four. Kidd uses this one event to lay way too many important plot points and give the piece meaning as a whole.

In Lily’s memory she is four years old and caught in between a spur of the moment argument between her parents when her mother, Deborah, produces a gun. When the gun gets knocked from her mother's hand Lily scrambles to grab it, and the rest is history. As Lily says herself, “She was all I wanted. And I took her away” (Pg.8). One of the main …show more content…
It is only after T.Ray tells Lily that her mother never loved her does she make the decision to leave, so that she can find closure and make peace with the memories she has of her mother.. This is only one example of how Lily’s foggy memory affects her present actions. Almost every decision that Lily makes throughout the entire book is driven by her need to make good with her past. To clarify, because Lily does not know the full truth about her mother, and is left only with one bad memory of her, she is motivated by the possibility of being able to reconcile with Deborah. “...and she would kiss my skin and tell me I was not to blame.” (pg.3), this quote proves Lily’s wanting to somehow rectify things with her mother. Wanting desperately for August (someone who was once close to Deborah) to love her, for example, is another way that Lily tries to make amends.

Sue Monk Kidd’s novel “The Secret Life of Bees” tells the tale of 14 year old Lily Owens, a young girl who is constantly plagued by the memory of accidentally killing her own mother at four years old. The story is built upon this event which functions as the basis for many of the novel’s main themes and