Secret Life of Bees --

Secret Life of Bees -- Sue Monk Kidd

Sue Monk Kidd's novel is a skillful blend of recent American history and well-honed fiction embracing well-developed characters. The history of the Civil Rights Movement in the South -- exploding with hostility, intolerance and blatant racism -- is interwoven throughout the novel. Among the powerful fictional elements in this novel: a) the psychological affect that racism has on a society from the point-of-view of a motherless child with an unkind father; b) the symbolism of bees, honey and religion in a world spoiled by hatred and violence. Lily is a young white girl growing up in the South during the tumultuous, violent Sixties and ironically a friend she runs away with is an older African-American housekeeper. Hence Lily is psychologically affected by the times and so she seeks symbolic salvation through bees, a black Madonna, a black surrogate mother and another friend named August who knew her mother.

Annotated Bibliography -- Six Sources -- Plus Narrative Connecting to Novel

Barham, Penny. "Black Madonnas." Feminist Theology. 11.3 (2003): 325-332.

Does the meaning and the psychological implications of the Black Madonna go deeper and farther than the issue of "ethnicity" and does the Black Madonna symbolize more than the "power and presence" of Christianity? In her Feminist Theology article Barham asserts that there are three types of Black Madonnas; some have the same color as the indigenous population (such as the Lady of Guadalupe in Africa); others have simply turned black (although they weren't black at the outset) through smoke damage; and still others were made black "apparently for reasons other than ethnicity or chance" (Barham, 2003, p. 326).

For many people the Black Madonna "takes on the power of deity," Barham writes. For Lily and Rosaleen, the Black Madonna had more meaning that the chant, "Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art though among women" (Kidd, p. 90). Lily pokes fun at the ritual. When they had finished chanting the Hail Mary ("some kind of Catholic saying") "…about three hundred times" the sisters "would cross themselves from their foreheads to their navels, and it would be over" (Kidd, p. 90). Kidd presents that ritual as superficial and vague, but the Black Madonna has a power and mystery about her that fits more comfortably into the plot and the juxtaposition of Lily's skin color with Rosaleen's skin color.

On page 110 the legend of the Black Madonna grows bigger and the reason the Madonna is called "Our Lady of Chains" is spelled out -- the Black Madonna had broken chains that bound her, much like Lily and Rosaleen have broken free from the chains of what was expected of them. Lily of course has no mother, but the Black Madonna, according to Barham, represents the Mother of Jesus and more. "Black Madonnas have been seen as teachers of the esoteric" and the association between "Black and the Earth is Black as Wisdom" (Barham, p. 329). The Black Madonnas are believed to represent the "dark and healing aspect of Mary" and they have the power to "bring about cures in mysterious ways… [and] often the healing that a particular Madonna is responsible for relates to specific illnesses or conditions" (Barham, p. 329).

That said, on page 111 of Kidd's book Lily seems to have been deeply moved when she reached out to Our Lady of the Chains (the Black Madonna). "A moving wave of color" passed in front of Lily. "I am not one of you, I thought.. My body felt numb" (Kidd, p. 111). Perhaps her fainting was not actually any "healing" caused by the Black Madonna, but something happened to Lily in that moment of reaching out "to touch her vanishing red heart too, as much as anything I'd ever wanted" (p. 111). Meanwhile the weaving together of reality (history) and fiction is evident throughout the book, including narrative on Lyndon Johnson, President Kennedy's space ambitions, and on page 139 August tells Lily "There are hundreds of [Black Madonnas] over in Europe, in places like France and Spain," which Barham verifies in her scholarly research.

Emanuel, Catherine B. "The Archetypal Mother: The Black Madonna in Sue Monk Kidd's The

Secret Life of Bees." West Virginia University Philological Papers Vol. 52 (2005): 115-212.

Emanuel references Toni Morrison's story The Bluest Eye in terms of the similarities between Lily and the protagonist in The Bluest Eye, Pecola Breedlove. Pecola is an African-American girl that everyone says is very ugly, which is unfair and makes Pecola feel bad about herself. So Pecola tries to escape her difficult situation and in doing so she reaches out to symbols of something to look up to, something to aspire to. She becomes obsessed with things that are white, like the milk she drinks from a Shirley Temple cup. Pecola and Lily are not at all in exactly the same situation but they both are excluded from the mainstream of society. Lily's psychological exclusion is "…from representation in society's power positions and in her viewpoint, exclusion from nearly all church images and stories." Lily is forced to find a new way of existence because of the cruelty of her dad and the cruelty of the racist power structure. In order to stay on some kind of an even keel in this strange society they live in Lily and her black friend Rosaleen adopt new identities. They interact with bees and a Black Madonna.

The Black Madonna symbolizes several things, including a kind of Pagan "matriarchal religion," according to Emanuel. It has been around "since 18,000 B.C," Emanuel claims, and it is a symbol of a "community of women…worshipping figures of a dark woman and embracing the concept of finding the godlike within themselves" (Emanuel). Moreover, the Black Madonna served the novel as a "psychological archetype of an indomitable spirit, a soul not defeated by the persecutions of slavery" (Emanuel). And in the end, Lily, who struggled to find the feminine strength she knew was inside her, "learns to mother herself and to discover the harmony of this life" (Emanuel).

Health Benefits of Honey. "Honey in The Bible." Retrieved March 25, 2010, from http://honey-health.com/honey-52.shtml.

Apparently the Hebrews did not cultivate bees, this article explains, but "wild honey" is mentioned frequently in the Bible and in fact the Jews were careful to protect bees from the "scorching sun" by placing linen over the bees' nests. There was reportedly a "caste among the Hebrews called Essenes" from the Dead Sea area whose avocation was to raise bees and produce honey. The phrase "…a land of milk and honey" is found 21 times in the Bible (the article offers the exact passages). Numerous other Biblical references are included in this article that point to the importance of honey, which was used as a nutrient, a sweetener, and as a gift.

Laney, Garrine P. The Voting Rights Act of 1965: Historical Background and Current Issues.

Hauppauge, NY: Nova Publishers, 2003.

The psychological damage that can be visited upon a citizen (in this case, Rosaleen) who has attempted to vote and is harassed by white racists can be significant, and Garrine P. Laney's book points out that denying blacks the right to vote was a policy in many Southern states prior to the 1965 Voting Rights Act. "Unfair examinations, intimidation," poll taxes, removing one's name from the list of registered voters -- and even violent attacks -- were commonplace in the South even after the 1965 Act (Garrine, 2003, pp. 4-5). "All but two Southern states used literacy tests as voting limitation devices," Garrine writes on page 4. States in the South actually held constitutional conventions "…to permanently disfranchise black Americans." In Kidd's novel (p. 27) Lily is concerned for her friend Rosaleen Daise, who was planning to register to vote. "…An uneasy feeling settled in my stomach…the television had said a man in Mississippi was killed for registering to vote…" (p. 27). Again, the reader comes across fact-based history blended into a book of fiction, and the story of real American history juxtaposed with disenfranchised characters is powerfully presented.

Shapiro, Delores J. "Blood, Oil, Honey, and Water: Symbolism in Spirit Possession Sects in Northeastern Brazil." American Ethnologist, 22.4 (1995): 828-847.

The image and theme of honey in Kidd's novel has stirred interest in what honey means to other cultures. In Shapiro's research she refers to the Giro groups in Brazil. These Afro-Brazilians (ancestors of slaves brought from Africa) meet up to four times a month in a private home. The table is covered with a "white tablecloth and glasses of water, flowers, white candles on plates (often with honey on them)…" The "stated objective" of the Giro session "is to work for good…through prayer and song" that calls out to the "caboclo spirits." (Shapiro, p. 831). The spirits they call for are of indigenous Indians, known for "bravery, wildness, and healing powers" (Shapiro, p. 831). The Mesa Branca groups in Brazil meet and call out to spirits of the dead through a ritual called "solenes"; the mediums in the room are able to communicate with those spirits. Members of these groups interact with members of the Giro groups. The images that link these "spirit groups" (Shapiro, p. 832) are "maintained and codified through the agency of the symbols of blood, oil, honey and water." The rituals go well beyond "what Catholicism teaches" and indeed through these cultural activities the participants are rejecting Catholicism (which Lily certainly was doing in Kidd's novel) and saying that slaves have as much power as the Catholic saints.

In the Giro group that Shapiro (who is an anthropologist and who conducted field work in Brazil) attended, dende oil along with "water and honey" was placed "behind the door" during spirit sessions "to remove irradiations from the street and the crossroads so that bad things would not happen" (Shapiro, p. 835). The author (pp. 836-837) met Helena, a Giro spirit leader, and learned that honey is "specifically associated with the caboclo spirits of indigenous Amerindians who are characteristically either young and handsome, brave and obstreperous, hunters or cowboys, or wild and savage." These spirits that are connected with honey are the epitome of freedom "of action and will" and they are healers -- the "antithesis of slave spirits." When honey is on a plate on the white tablecloth it is used "to sweeten a person's feelings or path." And so honey in the Giro spirit dynamic has absolutely no "symbolic connection with Africa or slavery." And because it is light amber in color (neither dark like blood and dende nor light like water) it "transforms color from something that stains a person as poor" (like being Afro-Brazilian) and immoral to a sign of incorporation of positive attitudes" (Shapiro, p. 837). A positive attitude is certainly a part of Lily's life and times, and honey blends in ideally with this concept.