The Secret Life of Bees Chapter 1 Notes
Setting: Summer of 1964 – Sylvan South Carolina
Female Protagonist & narrator: 14 year old Lily Owens
“People who think dying is the worst thing don’t know a thing about
life” (2).
Lily faces a lot of challenges in her life.
 She is motherless and yearns for love and acceptance.
 Lives with T.Ray – her angry, neglectful, and sometimes abusive father.
 She is unpopular at school.
 She is living with the guilt of accidentally killing her own mother.
Lily’s first and only memory of her mother is from the day her mother died
(Lily was 4 years old).
Her memories are blurred but she remembers her mother and
T. Ray fighting and the explosion of the gun.
When Lily is in first grade, T. Ray tells her that she shot her mother by accident.
When Lily was 12, she found “…the last traces of her mother…” in a paper
bag in the attic. Inside the bag was:
1. a photograph of her mother,
2. a pair of white cotton gloves,
3. a picture of a black Virgin Mary with a wooden frame that says Tiburon
South Carolina on the back.
-She keeps these items hidden in a tin box in the woods near the orchard where
she goes secretly to think about her mother.
-When T. Ray finds her there one night, he accuses her of sneaking out to be with
a boy (far from accurate). He punishes her by making her kneel on grits.
Rosaleen: Lily’s “stand in mother”; a large African American woman with a bold
personality. Rosaleen has no family or friends.
*Within the setting of the novel (the South in 1964) African Americans did not
have equal rights and were often treated unfairly.
When Lily’s mother died, T. Ray brought Rosaleen from the peach orchards to
take care of her (she was a peach picker)
Rosaleen is the only person who makes Lily feel loved; she takes care of Lily and
defends her from T. Ray.
“…despite her sharp ways, her heart was more tender than a flower
skin and she loved me beyond reason” (11).
-Lily’s 14th Birthday falls on the 4th of July; she hints to T. Ray that she wants a
charm bracelet, but she realizes that he will never get her such a gift. The
realization saddens her.
-Rosaleen is excited about the passing of The Civil Rights Act; the news
program is broadcasting President Johnson signing the act on July 2, 1964.
Two days later (on Lily’s Birthday), Rosaleen and Lily go into town.
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Lily lies to T. Ray about the reason they are going, sayings she needs
feminine products from the store.
They are really going to town so Rosaleen can register to vote.
As they are walking into Sylvan, they encounter a group of men who begin
to ridicule Rosaleen and make derogatory and racist comments towards
her.
Rosaleen does not back down, but she probably should have. Instead she
admits that her fan is stolen from the church, and she pours snuff juices
all over the men’s shoes. Her actions are brazen and foolish.
The group of men transforms into a mob and beat up Rosaleen.
The police come and arrest Rosaleen for assault, theft, and disturbing the
peace; they take both Lily and Rosaleen to jail.
The Secret Life of Bees Chapter 2 Notes
Setting: Sylvan jail
 The men from town beat Rosaleen up again in an empty.
parking lot behind the jail.
 They are demanding that Rosaleen apologizes to them, but she refuses.
 Inside the jail cell Lily realizes that Rosaleen’s face is hurt badly. Lily can’t
understand why Rosaleen didn’t just apologize to the men.
-T. Ray comes to pick up Lily, but leaves Rosaleen behind at the jail.
“She dumped snuff juice on three white men! What the hell was she
thinking?” (37)
Lily is very worried about Rosaleen back at the Jail and begs for T. Ray to go back
and get her.
Setting: The Owens’ House
 When they get home, T. Ray threatens Lily and tells her that her
punishment will be very severe.
 Something comes over her and she talks back to him. “You don’t scare
me…”
 This enrages T. Ray, and he tells Lily that her mother could have cared less
about her. Lily argues with him and refuses to believe his hurtful words.
“The truth is, your sorry mother ran off and left you. The day she
died, she’d come back to get her things, that’s all. You can hate me all
you want, but she’s the one who left you” (39)
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T. Ray leaves to go settle the pay roll for the pickers and Lily is alone in the
house; she is devastated by T. Ray’s harsh words, which echo in her head
as she cries.
Suddenly, Lily has a moment of clarity:
“I knew exactly what I had to do- leave.
I had to get away from T. Ray, who was probably on his way back to do
Lord-knows-what to me. Not to mention I had to get Rosaleen out of
Jail” (41).
RUN AWAY:
 Lily packs a bag, takes the $38 she had earned selling peaches, and takes
her map of South Carolina off of her wall. She also packs her mother’s few
possessions and leaves the house after writing T. Ray a note telling him
not to bother looking for her.
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When she arrives at the jail, she learns that Rosaleen is not there, but she’s
in the hospital.
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Lily devises a plan to sneak Rosaleen out of the hospital. She calls the
nurse’s station pretending to be the police man’s wife; she tells the nurse
to tell the policeman who is guarding Rosaleen that he must return to the
jail house.
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Her plan is successful. The policeman leaves his post and Lily and
Rosaleen leave the hospital in a hurry.
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Lily shares her plan with Rosaleen- they are going to hitchhike to Tiburon
South Carolina, the location scribbled on the back of the Black Mary
picture that belonged to Lily’s mother. Neither of them know what they
will do once they get there.
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Rosaleen is not thrilled about Lily’s plan, but she follows along.
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They are picked up by a man driving a pick up tuck; he takes them within
three miles of Tiburon. Before he drives off, he gives them each a
cantaloupe.
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They camp out in the woods near the river, and they plan to walk to
Tiburon the following day.
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Rosaleen accuses Lily of treating her like a pet dog. Rosaleen questions
Lily’s motives:
“I get it. You ran off cause of what your daddy said about your
mother. It didn’t have nothing to do with me in jail” (53).
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They have a brief argument. Lily goes deeper into the woods and dozes
off; she has a scary dream that the moon cracks and falls from the sky.
When she wakes, she panics and begins looking for Rosaleen. Lily realizes
that she and Rosaleen need each other, and they reconcile.
The Secret Life of Bees Chapter 3 Notes
Setting: Tiburon South Carolina – a small southern town much like Sylvan
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Lily and Rosaleen are still en route to Tiburon; they are hungry and
beginning to get tired in their travels.
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When they get to town they stop at a general store to buy something to eat
and some snuff for Rosaleen.
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The storekeeper mentions that he has never seen Lily before; she makes up
a story, telling the storekeeper that she’s in town visiting her grandmother,
Rose Campbell; she gets the name “Rose” from the tin of Rose’s Snuff (The
storekeeper know everyone in the small town and questions Lily).
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Lily tries to buy some items from the store, but since it is Sunday, the
storekeeper tells her she can only buy food; she steals the snuff for
Rosaleen when the storekeeper is not looking. She feels guilty for stealing
from the store, but she does it for a good cause.
“I was speculating how one day, years from now, I would send the
store a dollar in an envelope to cover it, spelling out how guilt had
dominated every moment of my life, when I found myself looking at a
picture of the black Mary” (63).
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Lily notices a stack of honey jars with the picture of the Black Madonna on
them; she asks the storekeeper where the honey is from. He explains that
the honey is made by a woman by the name of August Boatwright.
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Lily is nervous and excited over her discovery in the store, which she
shares with Rosaleen. Rosaleen tells her: “I don’t want you getting
your hopes up…”
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Lily searches the newspaper for a story about a “…white girl breaking a
negro out of jail in Sylvan”; she is relieved that there is no such story.
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Lily plans to find August Boatwright.
The Secret Life of Bees Chapter 4 Notes
Setting: Outside of the Boatwright’s house. The house is Pepto-Bismol pink
surrounded by a picket fence, and there are many flowers and herbs growing
around the porch.
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Lily and Rosaleen watch August from a across the street; August is tending
to her bees. They wait for her to go inside before they approach the house.
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June Boatwright opens the door; she is not very welcoming. Lily asks if she
is August. June assumes Rosaleen and Lily are there because they want
honey. She tells them to come in and she gets her sister August.
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In the meantime, they meet May whose strange grin reveals that she is not
quite normal.
Lily describes the inside of the house: which “… smelled like furniture wax
everywhere…. [The parlor] was a big room with fringed throw rugs
and an old piano with a lace runner, and cane bottom rockers draped
with afghans. Each chair had its own little velvet stool sitting before
it… imagine walls with nothing on them but mirrors” (69-70).
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Lily notices a unique and striking statue of a black Mary in the corner of
the room. The statue gives Lily a strange feeling; she feels as though the
statue knows her down to the core.
“Standing there I loved and hated myself. That’s what the black Mary
did to me, made me feel glory and shame at the same time” (71).
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Lily lies to August telling her that she and Rosaleen are on their way to
Virginia headed to Lily’s Aunts house; she explains that her mother is dead
and that her father recently died in a tractor accident. She is afraid to tell
the truth because she does not want August to reject her.
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Lily knows that August sees right through her, yet August agrees to let
them stay with her temporarily; Lily and Rosaleen will stay in the honey
house. Rosaleen will help out with the housework, while Lily will help
August by working on the bee farm and in the honey house.
*June does not approve of the arrangement; June is characterized as serious and
stern. She is quite rude to Lily and makes them feel uncomfortable from the
moment they arrive. She plays the cello.
Lily explains that,
“T. Ray did not think colored women were smart…I thought they
could be smart, but not as smart as me, me being white” (78).
Lily admits that she is surprised that August is so intelligent and cultured.
“That’s what let me know I had some prejudice buried inside me” (78)
*August is cultured and kind. She is the oldest of the three sisters, and it is clear
that she is in charge. Lily wishes Rosaleen was as cultured as August.
*May is simpleminded and emotionally unstable. This is shown when Rosaleen
asks why all the sisters are named after calendar months, and May explains that
they used to have a sister named April, but she past away when she was little.
“Out of nowhere she started singing Oh! Susanna” like her life
depended on it… She cried like April’s death happened only this
second” (73)
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August shows Lily and Rosaleen to the honey house where they will be
staying; it is in the backyard behind the pink house, which is surrounded
by 28 acres of beautiful land left to August by her grandmother.
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Lily is at peace; she is happy and feels as though she belongs here.
The Secret Life of Bees Chapter 5 Notes
Setting: The Boatwright’s house
“The first week at August’s was a consolation, a pure relief” (82).
-Both Lily and Rosaleen are adjusting to life at the Boatwright’s house.
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Rosaleen is becoming very close with May, and Lily has been spending a
lot of time with August tending the bees and making honey.
Rosaleen figures out why May hums/sings “Oh! Susanna.” May
sings/hums the song when she’s upset; it is her way of preventing herself
from crying. May is “…a grown-up and a child at the dame time”
(85).
Lily has grown quite fond of May, and she admires her kindness,
particularly how she saves spiders and other insects by catching them and
setting them free instead of killing them; this reminds her of her mother.
Eavesdropping Lily overhears a conversation between June and August.
 She crouches, hidden in the bushes to hear what they say about her.
 June and August both know Lily is hiding something.
 June feels as though they should demand the truth, but August does not
want to scare her off or send her back to where she comes from if she is in
trouble. August tells June, “Let’s be patient” (87).
 Lily realizes for the first time that white people can face discrimination too
when June says “But she’s white, August” (87).
 This makes Lily angry at June, and she becomes uneasy about the
situation. She is worried that August will send her back.
 Lily begins to feel self conscious about being white, especially when they
watch the news and there are stories about conflicts related to racism and
The Civil Rights Act.
The Wailing Wall- is a stone wall in the woods behind the Boatwright’s house.
(The Wailing Wall actually exists in Jerusalem, Israel. People from all over the
world visit the famous world to pray and lament. People write their prayers and
sorrows on paper and put them in the crevices of the wall.
 August explains that it took May 10 years to build the wall, her own
version of the Wailing Wall (Lily discovers the wall in chapter 4).
 May writes her sorrows and prayers on small pieces of paper and puts
them in the crevices in the wall.
 When May begins to get upset, June and August tell her to go out to the
wall. This usually calms her down and relieves her sorrows.
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May becomes hysterical when one night they were watching the news and
there is a story about a man “…who was killed by a shotgun from a
passing car in Georgia” (89).
Lily and Rosaleen are surprised because they have never seen May so out
of control; August and June make efforts to console her by giving her a
bath
August tells Lily about a major turning point in May’s life, the death of her
sister April.
April
August tells Lily about May’s twin sister April. When April was a little girl she
faced discrimination and racism; when they were eleven years old the storekeeper
would not allow April and May to eat their ice cream in the store and read the
cartoon books as the white children did. This upset April greatly. “She got
deflated about life…” (97). When she was 15 she committed suicide with their
father’s shotgun
Our Lady of Chains The wooden black Madonna statue becomes very
important in this chapter.
 The Boatwright sisters prey to the statue every night; Lily, and eventually
Rosaleen, join them.
 August tells Lily the story of Beatrix the Nun to show Lily that she should
trust in the power of Mary; Lily feels as though August is metaphorically
speaking about Lily’s situation because August knows she has run away
from home.
 Lily begins to have faith in the power of Mary and prays to her for
protection.
Conflict:
 By the end of the chapter it is revealed that Rosaleen is jealous that Lily
has been spending so much time with August. Lily assures Rosaleen that
she wants to find out about her mother and that August may have answers.
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Lily starts to worry that somebody (T.Ray or the police) may come looking
for them before she has the opportunity to talk to August about her
mother, this worries her causing internal conflict.
The Secret Life of Bees Chapter 6 Notes
Setting: The Boatwright’s House
Neil is outside of the pink house fixing a truck.
 He is “sweet on June”
 He is a tall Negro man wearing blue jeans and an undershirt
with grease stains on it.
 He looks like a “studious mechanic” in his horn rimmed glasses.
-Lily learns why June is so against marriage; she was once engaged to
marry a man, but he stood her up on the wedding day.
The Daughters of Mary- A group of women organized by August;
they worship the black Mary statue, Our Lady of Chains.
 Lily meets the Daughters of Mary one Sunday when they are at
the pink house.
 They show up wearing fancy hats and jewelry.
 There is one man with them, Otis Hill.
 August tells the story of Our Lady of Chains explaining that she
was found by a slave named Obadiah.
 Lily is surprised by the manner in which August tells the story
with such passion.
 The Daughters of Mary become very engaged in the story and
before long they are dancing in a conga line as June plays
music.
 Each one of them takes turns touching the faded heart of the
statue.
 Lily wants nothing more than to touch the heart herself; when
she reaches out to touch it, June stops the music. Lily faints
because she is embarrassed and overwhelmed with emotion.
She feels awkward as though she does not fit in.
“I am not one of you” (111).
-August scolds June, and Rosaleen and August fuss over Lily and take
care of her. They all blame the heat as the reason Lily faints.
She still yearns to touch the heart of the statue.
The Secret Life of Bees Chapter 7 Notes
Setting: The Boatwright’s house
Lily still feels anxiety over T. Ray or the police coming to find her and Rosaleen.
She finally meets August’s God Son, Zach. At first she resents him because she
fears that he will interfere with her time with August.
Zachary Lincoln Taylor: Lily finds herself shocked that Zach is so handsome;
Zach is shocked that Lily is white.
 Lily admires the dimple on his face and admits that she would like to write
a letter to her former schoolmates, who would make fun of the lips and
noses of colored people, telling them how handsome Zach is.
 He is a junior at the colored High School, and he gets good grades (straight
A’s)
 He plays football for the school, but he wants to be a lawyer.
 Zach and Lily work together daily with the bees and in the honey house.
 Lily realizes she is developing a crush on Zach.
The excursion and Lily’s abnormal behavior- One day August sends Lily
and Zach out in the truck to pick up the last of the supers to be harvested.
 While they are on their way, Lily experiences drastic mood swings; one
minute she is laughing so hard she cannot catch her breath, and the
next moment she is crying hysterically.
 Lily realizes she is attracted to Zach.
“…I knew I was crying because he had that one-side dimple I loved,
because every time I looked at him I got a hot, funny feeling that
circulated from my waist to my kneecaps, because I’d been going
along being my normal girl self and the next thing I knew I’d passed
through a membrane into a place of desperation. I was crying, I
realized, for Zach” (128).
-When they return to the Boatwright’s house, August is moving out of the honey
house and into May’s room; this upsets Lily who fears she will be lonely without
Rosaleen.
Conflict:
June and Neil fight; Neil wants to marry her and explains that he won’t wait
around for her forever.
“Get this through your head: I’m not getting married. Not yesterday,
not today, not next year!” (132).
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The conflict between June and Neil sends May to her Wailing Wall.
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As time passes, Lily’s crush on Zach becomes stronger
“It seemed like I was now thinking of Zach forty minutes out of every
hour, Zach, who was an impossibility” (133).
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Zach gives Lily a gift; it is the “prettiest notebook…” (135), which she
uses as a journal and employs her vivid imagination to write stories and
record her feelings.
Lily gives him a big hug upon receiving the gift.
Lily, I like you better than any girl I’ve ever known, but you have to
understand, there are people who would kill boys like me for even
looking at girls like you” (135).