Theme

** “Most people don’t have any idea about all the complicated life going on inside a hive. Bees have a secret life we don’t know anything about.” **

The general message of the story is best described both in the title and in this short quote. The whole message is really that there is so much going on in a single persons life, that we really know nothing about. This idea is justified by the story of the bee's. We only see what happens outside the hive, this is true for both bee's and people. We only see what people choose to show. The entire story is mainly about judgements. How people judge other people by the color of their skin, how T. Ray judges Lily based on the past, and how everyone judges Lily based on a mistake that she made in the past. Sue Monk Kidd's main point that she is trying to convey with this story is simple. Do not judge others, whether it be by what you see or what you think you know. Period.  In __The Secret Life of Bee's__ there are a few themes, all different from the one before. The first theme is the reality of racism. This point is mainly shown by the characters. Lily, the Boatwright sisters, and even Zach have to struggle with the concept of racism. Another theme in this book is the power of women. This theme is expressed through Rosaleen and the lives of the Boatwright sisters. Rosaleen is a strong woman who suffers through the hardships of racism and she is also a mother figure to Lily. The Boatwright sisters were strong individuals known within their community. When Lily goes to live with them, she finds the true power of being a woman. Another key theme in this story is finding yourself. Lily feels there is a piece of her missing because of her mother's absence in her life. When she runs away from home to find clues about her mother and who she was, she ends up finding much more. She discovers a place full of love, wonder, and purpose. Living with the Boatwright sisters, she believes that she found her true purpose in something she really loves; beekeeping.

Sue Monk Kidd originally got the idea for __The Secret Life of Bee's__ from her childhood. She got the inspiration from honeybee's that used to live inside her walls when she was a child growing up in Georgia. I think that the main reason for writing this story is to prove the point that we shouldn't judge people. There is so much more under the surface that we don't understand. This point is really expressed in the title; __The Secret Life of Bee's__. 