Secrets Can be Used for Many Reasons (Secret Life of Bees Essay Example)

As humans, we tend to keep secrets from others, a lot of the time to benefit ourselves and others to “protect” them from the truth. Lily and August each hide secrets from each other from the truth. Lily uses secrets to protect herself and August uses secrets until Lily is ready to confront her about her identity. While Lily was lying about her identity and August “knew right from the minute;” Lily walked into her house that she was Deborah’s daughter. August was waiting for Lily “to get on solid ground,” as Lily “wasn’t ready to know” about her mother when she first came to August’s home (236). Lily uses August’s house to “become closer with” her mom and discover further information about her (12). Hiding secrets from close loved ones are not always the best idea as this could lead to a situation you did not intend to cause. In Secret Life of Bees, Sue Monk Kidd uses the motif of secrets to show that people use secrets for many reasons, sometimes to benefit themselves and others to protect the truth from individuals you would not intend to hurt. 

Throughout Secret Life of Bees, Lily keeps secrets from various people, most times to benefit her well-being of herself. Lily knows extremely little about her mother but finds a “paper bag with her mother’s things in her attic,” she does not confront her father, T-Ray, as he was abusive and knew that she would get punished for this (13). She uses this “bag to learn about her mother and sees a photo with the city “Tiburon, S.C” (14). Lily plans to go there with her live-in babysitter, Rosaleen, but Rosaleen does not know they are going to Tiburon to find evidence of Lily’s mother, Deborah until they are halfway there. Rosaleen constantly wants “to spill the story” on why they, but Lily interrupts her as this would ruin her plan (69). Therefore, using another secret and lie to her advantage and does not think about how this would affect others. Lily lies to August about her identity for many weeks to gather information about her mother, using August’s house for her convenience as her mother used to stay there. Lily continuedly to use secrets to her advantage and does not think about how they would hurt others, therefore, being selfish. 

As well as Lily, Rosaleen has many secrets but instead of using them to benefit herself; in this case, she uses secrets to protect others. Rosaleen also hides her identity from August to protect Lily, as she knows this will ruin Lily’s plan to find more about her mother. She as well hides the fact that she knew about her mother leaving her, but “didn’t know for sure,” as she just “heard things and didn’t want to hurt” Lily (263). Rosaleen genuinely cares for Lily and wants to shield her from anything thing that may disturb her, considering Lily had already been through a lot. This shows that some secrets are necessary if they are used the right way. In this case, Rosaleen uses secrets to protect others, as the secret might make them distraught. 

   Everyone in the Secret Life of Bees tries to keep news of suffering a secret from May, considering she becomes distraught by the news of suffering. May suffers from severe depression ever since her twin, April committed suicide, this keeps her sisters on high alert as “May takes in things differently than the rest of” any usual person would. Whereas her sister may hear misery “it might make (them) feel bad for a while,” but it would not wreck their entire world. May feels as if all the misery “is happening to her; she cannot tell the difference. Everybody tries to keep the news of Zach’s arrest as “it would be too much for May” (182). Nevertheless, May finds out about the arrest as Zach’s mother calls and tells May what happened, without knowing she was not supposed to know. May finally reaches her breaking point after hearing this news and commits suicide by drowning herself in the nearby creek by her walling wall. This exhibits that if she may have not known the news about Zach, there would be a chance she would not have committed suicide. 

Through the motif of secrets, Sue Monk Kidd shows that some secrets are necessary, and some are not. Both August and Lily realize that trust takes time, so they individually keep things amongst themselves until feeling comfortable with one another. Lily kept secrets for fear of being taken back to her father and August knowingly did not reveal that she knew Lily’s identity to keep her both safe and to build trust. During, the Secret Life of Bee, Lily, August, and Rosaleen all keep secrets from one another for many reasons ranging from safety, and security, to fear of the unknown. Lily is in her formative years and relies on secrets for many reasons and for the benefit of learning her mother’s identity. The other characters use their maturity and wit to disclose secrets at the appropriate time with both love and care.