40 pages • 1 hour read
Sue Monk KiddThe Secret Life of Bees
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2001A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Our Lady of Chains
The Our Lady of Chains statue in the parlor of the pink house is both a passed-down relic and story. She is the focal point of the Daughters of Mary services and functions both as a reminder of the Daughters’ shared and orally remembered history and as a symbol of help for the present and future. During the first Daughters of Mary service, Lily feels the desire to touch Mary’s heart along with all of the other women, but when June stops playing the piano, she knows she is not welcome to participate in this ritual. Lily decides that she cannot approach August with her story and her truth until she has touched Mary’s heart, which she eventually does. While Mary is a powerful symbol, August tells Lily that the statue only possesses the power that has been assigned to it. While Lily, being a white woman, is not part of this particular Our Lady story in that it is not meant for her but for all the Black women who gather at August’s house, Lily can always access the divine mother who exists in her already.
The Pink House
The Boatwright sisters live in a house that is “so pink it remained a scorched shock on the back of my eyelids after I looked away” (67), according to Lily. When August tells Lily that her favorite color is blue, Lily questions why the house is painted a bright pink. August tells Lily that the color of the house was May’s idea, and that although August never really cared for it, she considered it a small sacrifice if it could bring May even an occasional reprieve from her sadness. The pink house is symbolic of how August’s character functions for everyone around her. August has the ability to see people with a clarity that they themselves sometimes don’t possess. August’s generosity is displayed in her willingness to give people what they might need. She gives the Daughters of Mary the Black Madonna on the honey, she gives May the wailing wall, she gives Zach a caretaking job, she gives Rosaleen a family, and she gives Lily the truth when she’s ready for it.
Bees
Beekeeping is an extended metaphor in the novel and represents August’s place as both caretaker of the bees and queen of her own hive, the power of matriarchal communities, the interconnected nature of labor and care, and the idea of trusting that love can communicate louder than fear. The Black Madonna label on the honey is a reminder to August and all of the Daughters of Mary that they are part of the divine—that what both sustains and adds sweetness to life looks like them. Bees are important because they do so much more than produce honey: They pollinate, and thus they do the silent, unnoticed work of keeping everything else alive.
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By Sue Monk Kidd
