Join me and the Gather Book Club, Tuesday, 11/25 from 9-9:30PM ET to discuss the NYT Bestseller The Secret Life of Bees. Anyone can join. This Tuesday we'll meet to discuss chapters six through eleven.
The discussion takes place in the comment field below. I'll be your host tonight and will include the discussion questions in the comment field throughout our chat. Please don't give away any plot spoilers beyond chapter eleven.
You'll need to continually REFRESH your browser to see new comments appear during the live chat.
About the Book:
Set in South Carolina in 1964, The Secret Life of Bees is the moving tale of Lily Owens, a 14 year-old girl who is haunted by the memory of her late mother. To escape her lonely life and troubled relationship with her father, Lily flees with Rosaleen, her caregiver and only friend, to a South Carolina town that holds the secret to her mother's past. Taken in by the intelligent and independent Boatwright sisters, Lily finds solace in their mesmerizing world of beekeeping.
Discussion Questions:
- Do you think Lily's view towards African-Americans have changed since living with August and her sisters? Why or why not?
- Why do you think spraying June with a hose became a defining point in her and Lily's relationship?
- Why does Zach not tell on his friend who throws the bottle at the white man? Do you think he should have?
- Have you had the experience of living in the south during the 1960s? How did it compare to the racism the characters experience in this story?
Gather will randomly draw one person who participates in our chat between 9-9:30PM ET on 11/25 to receive 200 Bonus Gather Points TM!
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Comments: 132
Glad to hear that you're hosting, Christine.
Think about how she knew that Zach and she probably couldn’t be together, but she bristled when the cop was dumbfounded that she would be living with those colored women. Her thinking was still sort of caught in the middle.
Why do you think spraying June with a hose became a defining point in her and Lily's relationship? It knocked down the barriers that they had between them. It showed June that Lily was just a kid, wanting to have fun, not some evil little white girl that had a plan to destroy their lives.
Why does Zach not tell on his friend who throws the bottle at the white man? Do you think he should have? I think that it was an act of solidarity.
Do you think Lily's view towards African-Americans have changed since living with August and her sisters? Why or why not?
I think that as the book started, Lily was tolerant of African-Americans, because she was basically raised by one. However, I don't feel that she respected them as individuals, or at least not with Rosaleen. She was used to speaking for Rosaleen, instead of letting Rosaleen speak for herself.
As the book progressed, I think she looked at African-American's more as people just like herself- with real problems, real lives, real thoughts, real emotions.
I think that Lily experienced that transformation too. She already had a more advanced approach than most around her, but at the same time, she was a product of her upbringing. I wonder if she didn't have such a hard time herself if she would have been as quick to accept the Boatwright sisters as equals or better?
That really bugged me.
Lily was on the fringe of her "society" so in some ways she was already aware of the feelings of one who is was miscast. She didn't have any friends, her father more or less abandoned her, and her mother was dead. There was no family influence from any extended family either.
Do you think Lily's view towards African-Americans have changed since living with August and her sisters? Why or why not?
I think in egging June into the water fight, both June and Lily were able to get out some of their aggression towards one another, and release a lot of the tension that had been building up. For Lily, I think it showed her that June could be a carefree, playful person at times, and made her see June in a new light.
For June, well, I think it made her see that Lily wasn't her mother, that she was not raised like her mother had been, and that she didn't see June and her sisters as her servents, or beneath her.
This book was told in the first person by a girl or woman who was at least high school age. Yet, the author deliberately made her talk like an 11 year old. As a matter of fact, her grammar was certainly worse than mine was when I was 11.
I think one problem is that when we get our position staked out (Lily and June not liking each other), it becomes hard to find a point to step down and change. This was an excuse for them to accept that they both had changed their minds about each other.
What does everyone else think?
Most people were not well educated back then. I know it is early 60's but it was quite common for even whites to quit school in elementary school to help on the farm just to survive.
In Lily's situation, she was a victim of discrimination by others at her school and in her town.
I appreciate hearing your point of view because I was simply taken with the story, and I like something that makes me question the writer as well!
Although there is nothing wrong with looking up to the Blessed Virgin Mary the way Catholics do, adoration of her is another thing. I just loved all the black women who got together for Mary's feast day, but their constant adoration of Mary bothered me.
Still, it's a fair criticism.
What bothered me a bit was that she was actually pretty precocious for her age. She made a lot of great observations about people and the world around her that I know I wouldn't have been able to make at that age. Heck, it would take me a bit to see them now! How could someone with little interaction with others be so observant.
The worship of Mary was almost like a pagan ritual. The author said she was trying to incorporate the "divine feminine."
I think June needed time to accept Lily for who she was...a young woman looking for herself, for acceptance. She was not trying to be or replace her mother, just find her place in life.
I think Lily was intimidated by June's initially. She obviously didn't know about June's hesitations towards her, and this allowed her to that June was human too.
Catholics don't worship Mary anywhere near that much Elizabeth. Or at least not my Catholicism. I think the point was that they were looking to a woman, not a man as the symbol of their faith.
I think that Zach, like many of the characters of the book, was a product of his upbringing. Back then, black people were segregated, and focused on. I think it is entirely likely that he felt he would be included with his friends for what happened, whether he was involved in the incident or not.
For him, it was likely far better to stick with his friends, and support them, than to turn from them, and still wind up in trouble. His friends likely would have resented him, which could have made it worse on him.
Email me your mailing address and remind me that you want to read this book.
I think the Mary image was used as a springboard for honoring a matrilineal belief system ans was not a literal worship of the Mary symbol from the church.
The author never explained why Zach was the only black boy to go to a white high school.
Or did she explain, and I missed it?