The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd Book Review

In South Carolina 1964, racism and sexism were a hot topic. The Secret Life of Bees written by Sue Monk Kidd is a suspenseful story following the life of Lily Owens. Lily is the type of person to stand up for what she believes in, Lily lived with her abusive dad and maid after Lily shot her own mother when she was little.¨T-ray and I lived right outside Silven Carolina¨ (Kidd 98). Since Lily grew up the majority of her life without a mother, Rosaleen their maid took over being Lily's parental figure. Many characters like Lily and her maid Rosaleen take on injustice such as sexism and racism.

Lily, our protagonist and Roasleen, are capable women not treated fairly just because of their gender and race. Lily, like most women, is not given much hope for the future because of the low standards given to women. Early in the book it was very clear to the readers women weren't expected to have a successful school life. ¨She said a scholarship was my only hope for a future and lent me her private books for the summer. Whenever I opened one, T. Ray said, who do you think you are, Julius Shakespear?¨(Kidd 16) Lily couldn't even read without being criticized. On the other hand Roseleen just trys to live a normal life despite knowing she has a target on her back for being a person of color. Sue Monk Kidd wrote, ¨where´d you get that fan, nigger?¨ ¨stole it from a church,¨ she said. Just like that.(Kidd 32) This quote shows the immediate reaction of white people seeing a person of color was an immediate red flag for them. Lily and Rosaleen are just trying to live a regular life with the extra challenges like being a person of color or simply being a female. It honestly has to be exhausting dealing with racism and sexism.

In the novel, an example of Racism can be found when lily is found as more attractive because she is white and that is primarily found as more capable of love. “Lily, I like you better than any girl I’ve ever known, but you have to understand, there are people who would kill boys like me for even looking at girls like you.” p.135 since lily is a white female she is held to a certain beauty standard that is sexulised by white men. Because lily is a woman she is taught that she will need a white man to make the money for her while she will sit back and watch her life happen for her. Back then it was not even thought for a white person and a person of color to be together because of the standards they were held to. Lily fases constant sexism for just trying to stray away from the stereotype.

Skin pigment was very important to people back then, it would basically represent you.  “It washed over me for the first time in my life how much importance the world had ascribed to skin pigment, how lately it seemed that skin pigment was the sun and everything else in the universe was the orbiting planets. Ever since school let out this summer, it had been nothing but skin pigment every livelong day. I was sick of it” (Kidd 154-155) Judging people on their skin pigment is unacceptable, and only a thin amount of people know that it's wrong. People will only get hate directed at them if their skin is a shade deeper, People will take the normal things about you and turn them into bad and different. The author describes the racism happening at Lily’s school,“If he was shocked over me being white, I was shocked over him being handsome. At my school they made fun of colored people’s lips and noses. I myself had laughed at these jokes, hoping to fit in. Now I wish I could pen a letter to my school to be read at opening assembly that would tell them how wrong we’d all been”. (Kidd 116) In this moment the reader gets more insight into Lily's school life. At this point we only knew that  Lily's school was racist. This quote gives the readers insight on what Lily experiences at school, And we learn the type of hate directed to people of color.

In conclusion, Racism really was a hot topic. Lily and Roaseling bring sexisum and racisum to the surface so we can view some real life problems. In all I believe Sue Monk Kidd did an amazing job representing injustice.