SUE MONK KIDD’S THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES

AND HARPER LEE’S

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

BECAUSE MOMMY AND DADDY SAID SO

• To do well in school– MONEY = DOCTOR /

LAWYER

• Rice left behind in bowls– How ugly your spouse will be– How many moles you will have

on your face (I have many… Oh dear)

• Don’t make funny faces– Or your face will be stuck like

that when you grow up

AND THEN THEY CHANGED THEIR MINDS

• School = Enjoyment = Job– Business VS

Advertising/Design

• Stopped nagging about cleanliness of bowls– Realized I will never be

a clean eater

• Just called me ugly if I made faces

LILY OWENS

• 14 year old girl• Lives with T. Ray, her abusive father, on peach farm in

Sylvan, South Carolina • Has African American ‘nanny’ and housekeeper,

Rosaleen– Went to town to vote, and gets arrested when defending herself

against racist townies

• Bees she put in jar flew away – led to an epiphany: Lily had to run away from home– Hitchhikes to Tiburon, S.C. after sneaking Rosaleen out of the

hospital– Tiburon, S.C. found written on back of a picture of a black Mary

in her deceased mother’s possessions

LILY OWENS• In Tiburon, Lily found August

Boatwright and her two sisters, May and June. – Lies to stay with August and avoid

being sent back home in Sylvan.– Lily helps beekeeping, Rosaleen

helps housekeeping.– Lily meets the honey farm helper,

Zach, a handsome, intelligent, African American boy on whom she develops a crush.

• Lily grows closer to August, beginning to love her and to find in her a surrogate mother.

LILY OWENS

• T. Ray arrives at the Boatwright house, angry and violent.

• Lily finally has the strength to confront him about the past and to call him “Daddy.” – Lily had come to realize that T.Ray, just like her

mother, is a flawed and complex human. In a way, she forgives him, but she nevertheless feels happy to continue living at the Boatwright house.

• August convinces him to let Lily stay in Tiburon.

LILY OWENS

• August and her community become Lily's new family, and, at long last, Lily develops into a loved and loving person.

GROWING UP

• Lily was brought up by T. Ray, and in Sylvan, which was a racist community at that time

• T. Ray paid no respect to Rosaleen, the housekeeper.• Lily did not have exactly the same view on racism as the

townspeople, but she generally thought that most people were like Rosaleen, uneducated labourer-turned-housekeepers.

• Rosaleen was beat up and arrested in town because she was coloured.

GROWING UP

• Lily was influenced on her view by her father and the townies– T. Ray, who “did not think coloured women were

smart” (Kidd, 78). – Lily Owens admits that “to tell the whole truth”, “[she]

thought they could be smart, but not as smart as [her], [her] being white” (Kidd, 78).

GROWING UP

• But through experiences and influences by people around Lily, her view on people evolved.– Lying on the cot in the honey house of African American, August

Boatwright, all Lily could think was “August is so intelligent, so cultured, and [she] was surprised by this” (Kidd, 78).

• She never thought otherwise because nobody else did – Lily says to Zach, an African American boy and fellow

beekeeper, “I’ve just never head of a Negro lawyer, that’s all. You’ve got to hear of these things before you can imagine them” (Kidd, 121)

– “Bullshit. You gotta imagine what’s never been” (Kidd, 121).

CONCLUSION

• We are often brought up and influenced by those that surround us.

• Our values and beliefs are a compilation of others and our own.

• Children, because of their vulnerability to opinion, are especially inclined to their parents’ expectations and their moral bases affecting important issues such as racism.

• As children, they only know what they are taught - mixed with the romantic thoughts and naïve characteristics that accompany their child state.

• Though they eventually grow and form their own thoughts, values and beliefs - the morals that become their base plays an important role in their upbringing.