Study Questions and Essay Topics
Study Questions
1. Describe Lily's
relationship with her mother, Deborah. What makes their relationship
so complicated?
2. What is the
significance of the female communities in the novel? How do they
help Lily grow up?
3. In what ways
does Sue Monk Kidd root
The Secret Life of Bees in
a specific time and place? How does this tie into Lily's experience
of coming-of-age?
Suggested Essay Topics
1. Compare and contrast the ways in which Lily and Zach
are restricted by their ethnicities.
2. In what ways does Lily change throughout the course
of the novel? In the end, in what ways has she grown up? In what ways
might she still be a child?
3. At the end of the novel, T. Ray decides to let Lily
stay in Tiburon. Is this decision in keeping with his character?
Why or why not?
4. Discuss the novel's religious symbolism. Is The
Secret Life of Bees a religious novel? Why or why not?
5. In what ways does Lily's mother, Deborah, actually
serve as Lily's guardian angel? How does Deborah manage to help, teach,
and love Lily, even though she died when Lily was small?
6. What is the significance of August's discussion of
“motherly love” with Lily? Does August practice what she preaches?
