The Secret Life of Bees

1. The Secret Life of Bees Sue Monk Kidd

2. Sue Monk Kidd • Raised in Rural Georgia • Majored in nursing at Texas Christian University and graduated in 1970 with a B.S. degree. • During her twenties she worked as a registered nurse and as a nursing instructor. • Married with 2 children • She began first with small publications mostly non-fiction on spiritual topics. • Secret Life of Bees was her first novel.

3. Sue Monk Kidd • When her first novel, The Secret Life of Bees, was published by Viking in 2002, it became a genuine literary phenomenon, spending more than 2½ years on the New York Times bestseller list. • It has been translated into 36 languages and sold more than 6 million copies in the U.S. and 8 million copies worldwide. • Secret Life of Bees was named the Book Sense Paperback Book of the Year in 2004, long-listed for the 2002 Orange Prize in England, and won numerous awards. • For over a decade, the novel has been produced on stage by The American Place Theater, and in 2008 it was adapted into a movie by Fox Searchlight, which won the People’s Choice award for best movie and the NAACP Image award for best picture. • It is taught widely in middle school, high school, and college 

4. Setting • Novel begins on July 1, 1964. • 1960’s is a time of upheaval and change in the United States. • Novel focuses on Civil Right movement • Story told from prospective of 14 year old Lily Owens.

5. Civil Rights Movement • In 1954 the supreme court ruled that “separate, but equal” was unconstitutional way to educate American students. • 10 years later the Civil Rights Act of 1964 made it illegal to bar people from voting, from, eating at the lunch counter, and from going to state universities. • Basics of Civil Rights Movement • The Struggle

6. How we will be studying • Struggles of growing up. • Multiple Critical Perspectives: • 1) Formalism • 2) Feminist Theory • 3) Mythological/Archetypal Approach We will be examining these approaches AFTER reading the book in it’s entirety. We will also be looking at two critical analysis’s written on The Secret Life of Bees. * You will later establish a thesis and use the text and these critical analysis’s to write your own critique of the novel.

7. Chapters 6 & 7 • For each character listed below, clearly state what crimes he or she has committed. • Lily Owens • T. Ray Owens • RosaleenDaise • Franklin Posey • Avery Gaston • Come up with an argument about which character you believe to be the most “criminal” be prepared to defend why your group thinks this.

8. Formalist Approach • Read Notes on Formalist Approach handout • Concerned with form • Do not see outside influences that affect the work (authors life, culture it is created in etc.) • Study recurrences, repetition, relationships, and motifs. • Details are unimportant

9. Formalist Approach • 3 main areas of study • Form • Diction • Unity

10. Formalist approach : Form • Cadence: how the words sound • When a character is speaking, the sound of what he or she is saying or how he or she is saying it, can give clues as to who the character is and why he or she is in the work. • Repetition: saying the same word, phrase, or concept over and over. • Repetition= important • Recurrences: when an event or theme happens more than once. • Recurrences = important • Relationships: the connection between the characters. • By looking at the connections among the people in the story, one can understand the meaning of a work. Every character is in a work for a reason, it is the readers job to determine why.

11. Formalist approach: Diction • Denotation: the dictionary definition of a word. • Understanding the meaning of words is vital to understanding a text. • Connotation: the subtle, commonly accepted meanings of words. • Words can have a different “spin” based on what they mean and how society uses them. • EX: Condescension – the act of coming down voluntarily to equal terms with a supposed inferior to do something. • Condescends – now mean that he or she is acting superior to someone else. • Etymology: The study of the evolution of words or meaning and use. • This is when words literally mean something different today then what they might have meant in previous times. • Close study of words and why an author chose a particular word instead of a synonym.

12. Formalist Approach: Diction Continued • Allusions: links from the text at hand to other works. • Does reach outside of the meaning of text (can sway from formalist approach), but the idea of linking a text to another and why the author would choose to do that. • Ambiguity: the use of an open-ended word or phrase that has multiple meanings. • The lack of form is a form. • Ambiguity can connect lose ends in a work. • Ambiguity can be used to reveal a meaning. • Symbol: a concrete word or image used mainly to represent an abstract concept. • Understanding the use of a word or image to suggest deeper meanings can help reader gain more from text.

13. Formalist approach: unity • The use of one symbol, image, figure of speech throughout a work serves as a threat to connect one particular instance with every other occurrence of that symbol. • Shows the connection between earlier events of a story and what is happening currently or in forthcoming events. • Formalists do not look for perfect unity. They look for tension and conflict. Do not look at irony or paradox (contradictory truths) very closely.

14. Formalism essential questions • In what manner is the story told? Chronologically? Via flashbacks? • Is there closure or is the reader left guessing? • What is the point of view of the narrator? How does this affect the story being told? • Examples of foreshadowing? • Are there any patterns in the work? • What details of the setting indicate meaning (season, day, location, weather)?

15. Examining Subplot Activity 2 • We are looking at the formalist approach that specifically addressed form through this activity.

16. Examining Nature Imagery Activity 3 • This activity addresses the formalist elements: • Symbolism • Cadence • Repetition • Recurrence

17. Formalist Approach: Journal Entry • Would Lily’s story have a different effect if the plot unfolded chronologically? How does the flashback technique influence how a reader thinks about the characters? How do the flashbacks contribute to the novel’s meaning?

18. Feminist Theory • Read notes on the Feminist Theory • 1960’s the feminist movement began to form a new approach to literary criticism. • Works that females were writing was being studied critically in the same way that the work written by men was studied. • The portrayal of women in writing was being examined again in old texts and also new works were developing with the concept of “modern women”. • The idea is to finding negative attitudes toward women. • Masculine bias in literature that is harmful to the overall image of women. • They wanted works by women to be added to literary canon and read form a feministic perspective.

19. Feminist Theory: 3 areas of study • 1) Differences between men and women • 2) Women in positions of power and power dynamics between men and women • 3) The female experience

20. Differences between men and women • The basic assumption that gender determines everything, including values and language. • The canon must be expanded to include the study of genres in which women “traditionally” write: journals, diaries, and personal letters. • Note the differences in the topics or issues about which men and women write and the perspectives from which they write about them.

21. Women in positions of power and power dynamics between men and women • Note and confront the social, economic, and political exploitation of women. Note whether women have any power and of what variety it is. • Society has not treated all of its constituencies fairly, and literature is a mean by which inequities can be identified, protested, and possibly rectified. • Note the division of labor and economics between men and women. • Note how men and women interact with one another in a variety of contexts (romantic, professional etc.) • Are they subservient ? • Treated as children ? • Are they a political and economic equal ?

22. The female experience • A woman's’ experience of life is difference from a man’s on the most basic level. • POV male or female? • How does the narrator treat the events? • Reject the application of male standards to the female personality • The idea that you cannot judge the female personality by the same measures. • Examine the creative life giving role of femininity. • That women are treated as dependent on men. • Men depend on women for the birthing of children. • The concept of exploring men or women without each other is incomplete.

23. Essential questions for feminist reading • Please complete worksheet

24. Feminist Activity one • Complete Character Traits and Expectations Chart • On the back write an explanation of the positive and negative connotations of character traits as represented in the novel. • Examine the following characters: • Lily Owens • RosaleenDaise • Deborah Owens • T.Ray Owens • Brother Gerald • Officer Avery Gaston • August Boatwright • June Boatwright • May Boatwright • Neil • Zachary Taylor • Clayton Forrest

25. Feminist activity 2 • Complete Comparing The Owen and Boatwright Homes worksheet

26. Feminist Activity 3 • Complete Inferring Male Characters’ Point of View

27. Feminist Journal Entry • Choose ONE: • Is there a range of behavior for women and for men? Does one gender have wider or narrower social norms? Have social expectations changed since the period of the novel? Are there consequences for deviating from gender expectations? • Female stereotypes include a preoccupation with love. Is Lily’s longing for love a stereotype? How does the novel treat the subject of love?

28. Mythological/Archetypal Approach • Texts examined from this perspective are looking for symbols. • Carl Jung believed that humans were born with an innate knowledge of certain archetypes and that is why certain myths are repeated throughout history in cultures and eras that could not have had contact with one another. • Many stories in Greek and Roman mythology have counterparts in Chinese and Celtic mythology. • Many of these myths and symbols represent ideas that humans could not otherwise explain. • Creation story • A life after death belief • A reason for human failing • Many of these are similar

29. Mythological/Archetypal Approach continued • Critics of these approach take note of general themes, characters, and situations that recur in literature and myth. • Example: Jane Austen’s Emma was adapted into the popular Hollywood film Clueless • By drawing on feelings, thoughts, concerns, and issues that have been part of the human condition in ever generation, modern authors allow readers to feel that they know the characters in a work with very little background information.

30. Mythological/Archetypal Perspective • Three main points of study: • Archetypal characters • Archetypal images • Archetypal situations

31. Archetypal characters • The Hero: larger than life. Search for identity/fulfillment results in destruction. Results in furthering the ideal. • Clark Kent: balance between super and mortal self Variations of the Hero: include the orphaned prince or the lost son raised ignorant of his heritage until he is rediscovered. • The Scapegoat: an innocent character whom the situation is blamed. Removing guilt from culprit and society • Charles Darney: blamed for actions of father/uncle. Killing him rectifies what they did in Madam Defarge’s eyes. • The Loner or Outcast: character who seperates from society due to impairment or an advantage that sets this character apart from others. • Victor Frankenstein travel to remove localed to avoid people when he realizes that he ahs created a moster.

32. Archetypal Characters • Variations of the Loner: • The Underdog: smaller, weaker, less worldly wise character who usually emerges victorious at the end of the story. • The guilt ridden figure in search of redemption. • The Villain: the male or female personification of evil. Not all antagonists are villains. Villains truly personify evil. Malice is often unmotivated or is motivated by a single grievance from the past. The villains malice is often limitless and rarely is the villain reformed within the story. • Madame Defarge

33. Archetypal Characters • Variations of the Villian: • The “mad scientist” • The bully • The temptress: the female who possesses what he male desires and uses his desire as a mean to his ultimate destructions: • The earth mother/goddess: mother nature, mother earth, the nurturing, life-giving aspect of femininity • The spirit or intellect: the often unidentified feminine inspiration for works of art and literature. • The sage: largely of eastern origin, the sage is elderly wise man, the teacher or mentor.

34. Archetypal Characters • Variations of the sage: • The wise woman, the witch. Sage’s wisdom is usually spiritual or philosophical. Wisdome concerns the working of mother nature. • The stern but loving authority figure • The oracle: male or female prophet, fortune-teller, sooth-sayer

35. Archetypal images • Colors: • Red as blood, anger, passion, violence • Gold as greatness, value, wealth • Green as fertility, luxury; growth • Blue as peace serenity • White as purity goodness • Numbers: • Three for the christian trinity • Four for the four season, four elements (fire, water, air, earth) • Twelve for the months of the solar year

36. Archetypal images • Water: The source of life and sustenance; cleansing and purification; baptism. • Fire: protective and destructive; can symbolize human knowledge and industry • Gardens: natural abundance; easy, beautiful life; new birth, hope; Eden, the original Paradise which humankind was expelled. • Geometric shapes: a triangle for the Trinity; a circle for perfection and eternity, wholeness, union.

37. Archetypal images • Celestial Bodies: the sun is both the giver and destroyer of life; the moon marks the passage of time and control the course of human events. Seedtime, harvest are all determine by the phases of the moon than the progress of the sun. • Masculine imagines: columns, towers, boats trees. • Feminine images: bodies of water, caves, doorways, windows. • Caves: ambiguously can represent the womb (source of life) the grave, often represented the entrance to the underworld or unexplored regions of the human soul.

38. Archetypal images • Yin and Yang: any scheme that suggests that each par of opposites partakes of the other’s nature, complements the other, and essentially completes the other, the idea that without a balance of opposing forces, the world would erupt in chaos.

39. Archetypal situations • The Quest: the hero’s endeavor to establish his or her identify or fulfill his or her destiny.

40. Archetypal images • Variations on the quest: • The Faustian bargain: selling of one’s soul to the devil (metaphorically) in exchange for unlimited power, knowledge, wealth • The pursuit of revenge for a wrong: • The descent into the underworld • The renewal of life: death and rebirth, resurrection as seen in the cycle of the seasons, the phases of the day, sleeping and waking • Initiation: coming of age, rites of passage • Ex: first hunt, weddings, teenage angst films • The fall: any event that marks loss of innocence, a devolution from a paradisial life or viewpoint to a tainted one. • Redemptive Sacrifice: any voluntary loss of life, that results in another’s gaining or regaining a desired state.

41. Archetypal images • Redemptive sacrifice: any voluntary loss, especially a loss of life, that results in another’s gaining or regaining a desired state. • The catalog of difficult tasks: ex: Cinderella’s treatment by her stepmother • The end of the world: usually apocalyptic, involving warfare, a huge battle, a metaphoric final battle between good and evil

42. Essential questions for mythological/archetypal reading • Complete worksheet

43. Identifying characters as archetypes • Complete worksheet with group.

44. Identifying archetypal situations • Complete worksheet with groups

45. Inferring the cultural significance of archetypes • Complete worksheet

46. Mythological/Archetypal Journal Response • At the end of the novel, Lily Owens declares she has many mothers. In a coherent essay, compare Lily’s ideas about Motherhood in the beginning of the book with her observation at the conclusion.

47. Literary Criticism • We will be reading three literary criticisms of The Secret Life of Bees. • Charles Brower • Anne-Janine Morey • Anne Marie Hacht • After reading these criticisms, you will come up with a topic relating to the three approaches we have discussed: • Formalist Approach • Feminist Approach • Mythological Archetypal Approach

48. Literary Criticism • You will create a thesis statement (we will review this) and will use the book and at least of the literary criticism given to you, to argue your thesis statement regarding The Secret Life of Bees. • Due Date: