Issues of Responsibility and Forgiveness in the Secret Lives of Bees - Essay Example

Issues of Responsibility and Forgiveness in the Secret Lives of Bees The themes of forgiveness and responsibility are abundant in The Secret Lives of Bees. In many ways the two themes are tied together as forgiveness often cannot come without taking responsibility for one’s actions or one’s own life. The idea of forgiveness is not just in the seeking of forgiveness from others, but in the ability to forgive oneself as well. The women characters in the story struggle to find self identity. In this search, they discover that to truly find themselves, they must take responsibility for their own lives rather then let other people control them. Nowhere in the story are these themes more evident then in following Lily’s journey to self realization throughout the story. Responsibility is also demonstrated as the Lily must reach a coming-of-age as she reaches adolescence and must discover who she is both as an individual and a woman. This path towards maturity also unveils an acceptance of responsibility which includes being able to forgive. To move forward and reach full self realization, the women learn to forgive themselves and those who have hurt them. The irony is that Lily must learn about her mother to learn about herself; therefore, she must first forgive herself in order to mature. In Lily’s case, sometimes learning what one is not responsible for is an essential as learning to take responsibility. Throughout the story, it is clear that in order to obtain a true independent identity as a woman, the protagonist must learn to forgive the past she cannot control and take responsibility for the future that she can. The theme of a need for forgiveness is presented immediately in chapter 1 as Lily suffers from extreme guilt after killing her mother. This guilt is demonstrated as at night she dreams of dying and meeting her mother in heaven and begging for her mother’s forgiveness, though Lily doubts that her mother could ever forgive her for murder. Losing one’s mother is traumatic for any child, but feeling responsibility for that death is an unimaginable burden. Though it is difficult to blame a four year old for an accident, Lily feels blame and needs to come to terms with this and be able to forgive herself. Growing up without a mother has prevented Lily from having that strong maternal role that a young girl needs to create a sense of identity. She is unsure who she is as a female and her father stifles her personal growth by controlling where she goes, what she does, and even what she is permitted to learn. He does not even allow her to read books as he sees it as a waste of time. As Lily struggles to come to terms with not knowing her mother she “sets out on a journey to learn about her estranged (or, in Lilys case, dead) mother and learns about herself in the process”. (Thornburgh 95). Throughout the story, Lily searches for a mother figure. Rosaleen fills this void for her though she is no blood relation. However, as she has no strong parental figure and has trouble finding self identity, she needs a woman role model to help her discover herself and her femininity as she approached adolescence. Rosaleen was the only woman in her life and Lily stressed over how she would grown and mature and learn without a mother. “Like training bras. Who was I going to ask about that? And who but my mother could have understood the magnitude of driving me to cheerleading tryouts?” (Kidd 13). Though Rosaleen was in her life, Lily yearned to find out more about her mom and since she could not learn this information from T. Ray, she knew she must journey on her own. This need for fulfillment is what does finally drive her away from home “and her guilty hunger for parental love is the emotional axis of the novel.” (Morey). At one point, when she realizes her mother’s mother could be alive and she would have a grandmother she was very excited. but quickly discovered she was dead. Her search for a maternal figure is not just representative of her search for identity but also her initial steps in her search for forgiveness, not realizing the only one she needs forgiveness from is herself. Initially, the journey represents a need for her to search for forgiveness in the past but she could not do this with T. Ray around. “I understood that a new rooftop would do wonders for me.” (Kidd 25). The only way for her to find herself was to take that responsibility. Her father did not want her reading or going to college and he would be determined to prevent her from ever leaving or doing anything but his bidding. To find herself, she had to get away from him. To move forward, Lily must understand and accept her past. For Lily, accepting the past will mean forgiving herself for her mother’s death rather then waiting for someone else to do the forgiving. “Thus, Lilys search for an archetypal mother expands from a quest for psychological identity to a quest for a religion that offers some reflection of herself.” (Emanuel). In her excursion, she is lead to find out the truth about here mother’s death from August. When she knows the truth, she is then able to forgive herself and begin taking responsibility for her own life. “Though an accident, her death resulted from Lillys pulling the trigger. On a firmer footing now, Lily absorbs the truth. She has grown into a person who can face the past and look to the future.” (Emanuel). For Lily, her first act of responsibility was escaping from her father and joining with other women. The women she bonds with are also facing a struggle for identity though their quest is as much about racial identity as well as a feminist identity. Within this community of women, Lily who suffers from a deep sense of mother loss, learns about racism, whiteness, forgiveness, maternal love, spirituality and creativity; she becomes more aware of the complexities and possibilities of herself and her world. (Grobman 10). All of the women are in search of something better. “Fleeing a world ruled by angry white men, Lily and Rosaleen soon discover a haven. In Tiburon, they are taken in by three beekeeping sisters, May, June and August Boatwright. Lily senses something magical about the sisters and believes this is where she finally will learn the truth about her mother.” (Dukess). Seeing the struggles of the other women helps her realize that her mother was also fleeing. The fight was because she was packing up presumably to leave T. Ray and the oppression he represented. She was taking responsibility for herself and leaving even though this got her killed. “Kidd discusses the psychological damage of womens exclusion, exclusion from representation in societys power positions and in her viewpoint, exclusion from nearly all church images and stories.” (Emanuel). However, part of responsibility is accepting the truth. As August tells her when Lily questions why she didn’t tell her about her mother sooner, “because you weren’t ready to know about her. I didn’t want to risk you running away again.” (Kidd 236). As Lily is out in the world she has begun to realize that with responsibility comes consequences and she has to learn how to live within this new world she has discovered. Though Lily had suffered through her own persecution at the hands of T. Ray, whose favorite form of punishment consisted in making his daughter kneel bare-kneed for hours on Martha White grits, Lily realizes that Rosaleens injustice can produce life-threatening consequences. (Emanuel) At this point, all areas of struggle have come together. There is a common bond in the search for finding identity, finding equality and finding forgiveness. These women need to forgive their abusers whether those are men like T. Ray, the police, or the white men who beat on the black women for wanting to vote; they had to leave the past behind them. Once Lily accepted that she had to forgive herself, her father, and ultimately her mother, then she was able to truly see who her mother was and how much they were alike in spirit. In looking through her mother’s things and seeing her physical hair, she could reach out and touch her mother and realized she found what she was looking for. “I figured May must’ve made it to heaven and explained to my mother about the one sign that I wanted. The one that would let me know I was loved.” (Kidd 276). Through love and identity she was able to be able to forgive even though it was a painful journey for her to undertake. “People in general would rather die than forgive. It’s that hard.” (Kidd 277). The journey for forgiveness was not the only difficulty she had to face but also taking responsibility for herself and her new identity included confronting her father even though he was the one who initiated the visit, it was the final step she needed to take. She had already taken the steps of forgiveness and responsibility and now her final step was to proclaim her identity to her father. “T. Ray, I said. It’s me—Lily.” (Kidd 293). Works Cited Emanuel, Catherine B. "The archetypal mother: the Black Madonna in Sue Monk Kidds The Secret Life of Bees." West Virginia University Philological Papers 52 (Fall 2005): 115(8). General OneFile. Gale. Apollo Library. 20 May 2009  . Karen Dukess. . "Bees tells a girls tale of transformation :[FINAL Edition].  USA TODAY  [McLean, Va.] 26  Feb. 2002,D.03. ProQuest National Newspapers Premier. ProQuest.  20 May. 2009  Kidd, Sue Monk. The Secret Life of Bees. New York: Penguin, 2003 Laurie Grobman. . "Teaching Cross-Racial Texts: Cultural Theft in The Secret Life of Bees. " College English  71.1 (2008): 9-26. Research Library. ProQuest.  20 May. 2009  Morey, Ann-Janine. "The Secret Life of Bees." The Christian Century 120.4 (Feb 22, 2003): 68(3). General OneFile. Gale. Apollo Library. 20 May 2009  . Thornburgh, Blair. "Schmoozing About Books." Cicada 8.6 (July 2006): 94-95. MasterFILE Premier. 19 May 2009 . Read More