The Secret Life of Bees
Chapter # 1
Summary – This chapter talks about Lily Owens and her father whom she calls T- Ray. Lily talks about how she feels that she killed her mother. Her father was never really a father figure so she had a stand in mother by the name of Rosaleen. Rosaleen is a black servant at their Peach Farm. Lily goes into details about the day her mother died and how her father has made her life miserable since then. She find a box of her mother’s belongings in the attic and have to hide them from T-Ray. One day she decides to go town with Rosaleen so she can vote. On the way there they were approached by three white men. They started to torment Rosaleen so she pulled her snuff juice on their shoes. That’s when all the drama started. Rosaleen was placed under arrest.
Chapter #2
Summary – The Beginning of Chapter 2 started off with Mr. Avery Gaston driving Lily and Rosaleen to jail because Rosaleen spit on three white men’s shoes. As they were driving, the three men started driving really close to the car and honking there horns and yelling at Lily and Rosaleen to try and scare them. Mr. Gaston guided Rosaleen out of the car and handcuffed her hands behind her back. The three men told her she better apologize, but she refused so the men proceeded to beat her face with a flashlight. He then took Rosaleen and Lily to jail. Then T-Ray came to pick Lily up from the jail, but did get Rosaleen. She began to fear even more for Rosaleen and at the same time was furious at the fact that T-Ray left Rosaleen in jail. Lily finally snapped when T-Ray told her to wait in her room for her punishment. They argued back and forth and T-Ray told her that her mother never cared about her and when she was packing that day of the accident, she was planning on leaving Lily there. She then realized she needed to get away from T-Ray and get Rosaleen out of jail. So she packed up her stuff, with no plan of what she was going to do. As she was walking, brother Gerald offered to give her ride to he jail, but when she got there Mr. Gaston said she had an accident, she fell, and she was at the hospital. After that, Lily, being the good liar she is, snuck Rosaleen out of jail, they then started there trip to Tiburon because that was written on the back of Lily's mothers picture. They then hitched a ride three miles outside of Tiburon with a black man who kindly gave then them to cantaloupes after he dropped them off. They found a peaceful spot by a creek to spend there night.
Chapter #3
Summary – Lily and Rosaleen fell asleep alongside a tree in a field on their way to find the honey. They have slept half the morning away and still not fully awake. She finally awoke Rosaleen and they started to get a move on with their day. Lily was thinking that it would be easy to find a place to stay or to eat but Rosaleen turned that down telling her that she’s with a black lady and people do not take kindly to blacks even with the civil rights act. Lily found food for them at a local general store and stole a can of snuff. She saw the honey on the wall and asked about it. She found out where the honey farm was located and how to get there. They then found a newspaper and bought it to find out if they were in the newspaper for being lost or runaways.
Chapter #4
Summary – In the beginning of chapter four Lily and Rosaleen were standing across the highway looking at August and her house. The first thing Lily and Rosaleen noticed was the bright pink color of the house. Lily and Rosaleen walked over and rang the door bell after August went in the house. Before June got August she looked at Rosaleen and asked her if August was expecting them. Lily said they were there for honey. Then June went to go get August while they waited in the front Parlor. Lily walked around the room admiring everything in their house. Then May walked over and stood beside her. August entered the room and said who have we got here. They explain to her the situation they were in. August said they could stay and June got all upset and left the room. As late afternoon came around it started to rain and August, Lily, and Rosaleen took a couple of pots to cover there heads and went to the honey house. When they got to the honey house there was one big room with all the honey equipment in it then there was another room that had to cots in it that was where they were going to sleep. August told them that they had to go into the house to use the bathroom but that they never locked there doors so that wouldn’t be a problem. Lily then asked August what she was going to do and she said help her and Zach with making the honey.
Chapter #5
Summary- In chapter 5, it starts off when the calendar sisters bought a few outfits for Rosaleen and put some medication on her stitches on her head. Rosaleen says that she will pay it all back, but the calendar sisters say that she can work it off. May starts crying again and she then excuses herself to the wailing wall. Lily also found out many things about June. Rosaleen and May become friends, and the mystery of May's humming and crying fits is solved. Lily overhears June and August talking on the porch. August then tells Lily the Beatrix the nun story, and Lily gets even more suspicious that she will send her away if she tells her what she is really doing in Tiburon. Then Lily finds out what the wall is and the story behind it, and she stuffs a paper with her mother's name on it in the wall.
Chapter #6
Summary – In chapter six, Lily gets to meet Neil, June’s friend, and she finds out that June will not marry him because she doesn't want to be married. The Daughters of Mary came over to their house for the church service. Lily watched everyone go up and touch the statue’s fading red heart. June played music while each person went up to touch it. August told Rosaleen and Lily they were allowed to go up and touch it. Rosaleen went first and then as Lily approached the statue to touch it June stopped playing the music. Then Lily fainted and August and Rosaleen were extremely nice to her the rest of the night.
Chapter #7
Summary – In the beginning of chapter 7 Lily was deep in thought. She realized that her and Rosaleen had been at the calendar sisters house for 8 days. She was worried because she was afraid of someone finding her and Rosaleen. "Part of me was always braced for
T-Ray or Mr. Shoe Gaston to drive up and end my charmed life." She also says, "I didn't know how long black Mary could keep the curtain drawn."(Kidd p.93) Another extraordinary thing happens. She remembered Zach was coming back and they finally meet face to face. During the middle of this chapter Zach and Lily discover and friendship between them and Lily discovers that she laughs the way May cries. She realizes people have different views of things and different interests. Towards the end of the book Lily and Zach find a strong attraction between them.
Chapter #8
Summary – This chapter talked mostly about childhood and how it affected your life, as you grew older. August explained a childhood tradition that her mother created for her and her two sisters June and May, which would be done during the months in which they were named for. This tradition consisted of being excused from chores, letting the girls eat all their favorite foods, and allowing them to stay up as late as they wanted. During August’s month she would wait until her sisters went to bed and curl up on the couch and read. As August was explaining all this to Lily it was seen that August is a warm loving person and Lily is coming to admire and even love her as she would her own mother.
Chapter #9
Summary – Chapter 9 starts out with August waking Lily up and telling her “It was gonna be a scorcher.” They soon left to water the bees which took them the entire morning. When they returned home may was sipping sweet tea on the back porch. They ate cold pork chop sandwiches and then May and Rosaleen began running through the sprinkler. Soon Lily and August joined in. Lily saw June and sprayed her. June hugged Lily at the end of the water fight. The heat became so unbearable that they had to sleep to stay cool. While in bed Lily struggled with thoughts of her mother. Lily soon walked to the pink house and saw May sitting on the floor. May had made a trail of marshmallows and graham crackers to lead the roaches outside. Lily recalled T. Ray mentioning her mother doing the same thing. Lily made the connection and decided she should ask if may ever knew a Deborah Fontanel. May replied yes. The next few days Lily was nervous with hope of what she might find out about her mother. That afternoon Zach came over and asked Lily to get a radiator hose with him for his truck. In town Zach met his friends and they were shortly approached by an angry white man. Lily looked on from within Zach’s truck as one of Zach’s friends threw a bottle at the man. All four boys were taken to jail. When Rosaleen returned home and realized what had happened to Zach, she took Lily to visit him. When she came back she found that May discovered the bottle incident as well. May said she was going to the wall and wanted to be alone. May left the pink house.
Chapter #10
Summary – Chapter 10 starts out with May missing. June, August, Rosaleen and Lily are sitting in the kitchen waiting for her. After twenty minutes they get flashlights and go into the woods past the Wailing Wall looking for her. All three of them walk through the woods calling Mays name. When there is no answer they then send June to the house to
call the police and to pray to Mary for help. As they reach the river they see May lying in the river dead with a large stone on her chest. When the police arrived, Lily is asked many questions. This upset here since they seemed more concerned about her staying with a black family than about her dead friend. As Lily described it she was having the dumbest conversation in her life. The next day they find a suicide note from May saying my life is over it is your time to live.
Chapter #11
Summary – The chapter opens with the decision of August to the shut down the honey making business. They eat their meals in their rooms and are gloomy walking around. Zach visits Lily a few times, he is still wanting to be a lawyer but now he wants to be one so that he can change things, like the injustices that he felt while in jail. To make the mood better, Rosaleen makes a dinner that they eat by candlelight. At the end of the meal August pulls out bottles of coke and peanuts, remembering that it was a favorite of Lily’s. Lily slept late the next morning and when she came into the house she found that everything was crazy with cooking and decorating the house for "Mary Day" something that Lily had never heard of. While they were cooking Neil walked in and he asked June, in front of everyone, if she would marry him. She accepted, thinking about what August had told her about living her life. After much work, the Daughters of Mary came over and started the celebration. Lunelle told Lily that she would make her a hat, which made Lily very happy. That night they went through a set ritual of celebrating Mary Day. They stood in a circle feeding each other honey cakes and then took the Mary statue to the honey house and chained her up, in remembrance of what the slave owner tried to do to contain Mary. During the service Lily left and was met by Zach outside the honey house, they walked holding hands through the woods toward the river. Lily told a story about a time that some boys had held her down and put a necklace of dying fish around her neck, this troubled her by how angry the boys were, and she made Zach promise that he wouldn’t ever become this angry. Zach and Lily started kissing and then they talked for a while and Zach promised that he was going to become a lawyer and once he had been able to become somebody, he would find her and then they could be together, as a memento of his promise he gave her his dog tag.
Chapter #12
Summary – In this chapter Lily found out the truth about The calendar sisters connection to her mother. August practically raised Deborah. Lily and August talked about many things that helped Lily to discover the truth. One thing that Lily may regret learning was the fact that she was a mistake. She began to feel as if she forced her mother to marry TRay and live the life she lived. She also got an insight on her mothers beautiful looks in a picture that August showed her. It was a picture of her mother smiling at her showing love.
Chapter #13
Summary –In chapter thirteen lily starts out trying to go to sleep, but she can not stop thinking about her mother. She lays there sweating in sorrow thinking of the reasons why her mother would have left her. Soon sorrow changes to anger and she flips out and starts to through honey jars, trays, and other miscellaneous around the room. During her spaz moment she cut herself and before she knows it she falls asleep. In the morning hours Lily is awaken by Rosaleen who was filled with fear because of the honey and glass, which was all over the room (not to mention Lily’s arm). Rosaleen took Lily to the bathroom to clean out her cut and to find out what was really going on. Lily finally had found out that August had lived with her mother three months after her mother moved from Sylvan. Rosaleen was shocked but not completely she knew that this was pretty much the story from the bits and pieces from conversations she had overheard Later that day Neil and Zach carried Mays body out for that ceremony June played her music and August said her words.. In the middle of the ceremony August poured honey on “their lady’s head” Lily baffled by this watched. Family and friends joined in to help rub it in because it was a preservative, Lily soon joined. Everyone started to fell happy again. August brought Lily a box after the ceremony was over.It happened to have her mothers belonging that she had left behind the picture hit her the hardest. She saw a picture of her mother feeding her happily with their faces touching. She was finally happy and had closer.
Chapter #14
Summary - Lily and August just got done looking at her mothers things in the hat box. August and Zach went to take care of the bees. Lily decided to stay back and be by herself. She would think of here mother, her new family, her old family, and any thing that caught her eye. Rosaleen went to go register to vote. This caught Lily off guard. She could not believe that she was going to do this after what happened the last time. Rosaleen asked if she wanted to go, but Lily said no. Lily called up Zach to see what was new. Zach asked how she was, and a whole bunch of other things. She only wanted to know about him. He said he going to a white high school. After that Rosaleen came home a voter, and she was happy. Lily was in the house by herself when a person came to the door. When she opened it there was T-ray. He was very upset at her, for running away. He was mad that she was living with blacks. He tried to take her home but she would not go. He then hit her she feel to the ground. She moved into the other room were he held he hair and was yelling at he like she was her mother. Then he realized what he did and gave up. He let lily stay with August but not without a little fight. In the end Lily came to grips with her mother, and started down the road to a normal life.