Theme of The Secret Life of Bees

I think that the book teaches that you shouldn't discriminate even if all the people around you are judging by color or race. Lily is white and she never really paid much attention or thought much of black people other than Rosaleen. However, when the two of them run away together, she meets the Boatwright sisters and Zach (another worker at their farm) and becomes wonderful friends with the sisters and ends up falling in love with Zach. The horrible truth, however, is that her and Zach cannot be together because of the color of their skin, so they promise each other that some day they will meet up again when things have changed and be together again. The whole story revolves around the Civil Rights Movement and black and white racial boundaries.

Conflict of The Secret Life of Bees

The two major conflicts in this novel are person vs. person and person vs. society. Lily and her father, T-Ray, never get along because he tells her all the time how her mother left her and didn't even care about her and that she killed/shot her. Lily did accidentally kill her mother but she doesn't believe that her mother ever would have left her. T-Ray is harsh and controlling and she can't take it anymore. So, Lily and Rosaleen (thier housekeeper/orchird worker) run away to Tiburon and end up having to lie to August, June, and May. Rosaleen escaped from jail in order to run and overall, the two of them are in trouble. In the end, Lily calls her father Daddy without thinking and they kind of have a moment. She still lives with the Boatwright sisters, but this time, with his permission and she forgives him. I think that the conflict is absolutely believable because things like this happened all the time in the south and in the sixties I'm sure.

Setting of The Secret Life of Bees

The novel, The Secret Life of Bees, mainly takes place in Tiburon, South Carolina, on a Honey Farm belonging to The Boatright Sisters (August, June, and May). It all occurs in 1964 right as the Civil Rights Act was passed. The reason Lily and Rosaleen go to Tiburon in the first place is because Lily found a honey label with that city written on it, that belonged to her mother. Lily missed her mother tremendously and would do anything in order to know anything more about her. I think that if the book was set somewhere else, it wouldn't be the same. Being set on a honey farm is pretty much the main plot of the whole story, however if it was in a different city, still on a honey farm, I think it would have worked just fine.