Prompt:
"The queen, for her part, is the unifying force of the community; if
she is removed from the hive, the workers very quickly sense her
absence. After a few hours, or even less, they show unmistakable signs
of queenlessness."
Response Requirements:
USE QASI/RATE to respond to the two bullets (each paragraph requires its own paragraph).
-In what ways is this quote relevant to the first chapter?
-How is Lily affected by "the queen's absence"?
The queen of a the hive is very important. She is the biggest piece of the puzzle, the most used ingredient in the recipe, as well as the most important chapter in the book. This quote is relevant to the first chapter of “The Secret Life of Bees” because Lily’s mother is her family’s queen bee, and now that she is gone, life for the family is not going so well. In the book, page five, it says, “The day she died was December 3, 1954”. Also, on page eight, it says, “She was all I wanted. And I took her away.” This shows that Lily’s mother, Deborah, was an important part of Lily’s life, and she is no longer in it. This is like the queen bee mentioned in the quote.
ReplyDeleteOne can be lost without the queen bee of there life. A path that once might have seemed clear could become full of fog and confusion. Lily is affected by her mother, her queen’s, absence. Without her, Lily is unable to live the normal life of a teenage girl. In the book, page eight, it says, when talking about Lily’s father, “He didn’t believe in slumber parties or sock hops, which wasn’t a big concern as I never got invited to them anyway, but he refused to drive me to town for football games, pep rallies. or Beta Club car washes, which were held on Saturdays. he did not care that I wore clothes I made for myself in home economics class, cotton print shirtwaists with crooked zippers and skirts hanging below my knees, outfits only the Pentecostal girls wore.” This shows that since Lily was lacking her mother and her queen bee, she was very different than most girls and didn’t have many privileges.
Like Lily, I would have to say that the queen bee of my life is my mother. My mom does so much for my family. She cooks, cleans, works, plans trips, and more. She keeps my life together. I do not know what I would do without her.
#oneinamillion6
ReplyDeleteThis quote is relevant to the first chapter, because similar to the way that the lives of bees are disrupted with the loss of their queen, Lily and T-Ray both had their lives turned upside down when Lily’s mother died. T-Ray’s life is ruined because without Lily’s mother, he doesn’t know how to properly take care of Lily, which is why he abuses her as a punishment. Lily’s life is also disrupted because she has nobody to take care of her the way that a mother does. This was shown on Page 9 when Lily says, “I worried so hard about how I looked and whether I was doing things right, I felt half the time I was impersonating a girl instead of really being one.” This quote shows that without a mother, Lily was showing “unmistakable signs of queenlessness”, which included not knowing how to dress in order to look like other girls her age.
Lily is affected by her mother’s absence in many ways, both mental and physical. One of the ways that it affects her mentally is the abuse she endures from T-Ray. He tortures Lily for small things with cruel, abusive punishments, such as having to kneel on grits for hours at a time. If Lily’s mother were still alive, she would be there to stop T-Ray from doing these horrible things to Lily. Another way that Lily is affected by her mother’s absence is her guilt. Although it happened while she was very young, and it wasn’t intentional, Lily is sure that she killed her mother, and she feels like her death was all her fault. Finally, “the queen’s absence” affects Lily physically in her appearance. Lily feels that without her mother, she doesn’t know how she should dress or do her hair. On Page 3, Lily says “You can tell which girls lack mothers by the look of their hair. My hair was constantly going off in eleven wrong directions…” This shows that her appearance due to the absence of her mother has a huge impact on her self esteem.
Do you know what it feels like to lose the queens presence? This quote is related to chapter one because Deborah is the queen, while Lily is the one feeling the signs of queenlessness. She has nobody to go to because T. Ray is not someone she can talk to. She also has many questions now that her queen is gone. Questions like what was she like, or when was her birthday. According to page 9 it states “I got barred because I didn’t have a mother, a grandmother, or even a measly aunt to present me with a white rose at the closing ceremony.” This shows how Lily is upset and misses her mother very much. She is as lost as a blind person without any help. A prediction can be made that Lily will always feel queenlessness because she can never have her mother back. She can only try to not feel the signs of queenlessness. This is how the quote relates to the first chapter.
ReplyDeleteHow Is Lily affected by the queen’s absence? Lily is affected because she can’t go to anyone anymore to talk about things. She always wants to know things about her mother, but since she isn’t there and T. Ray won’t tell her, she will never know. Lily also had a hard time making friends in school because she didn’t have a mother. According to page 13 it states “The oddest things caused me to miss her. Like training bras. Who was I going to ask about that?” This shows that common things like this won’t be answered because of the death of Lily’s mom. Lily is almost like a plant that needs water to grow. A prediction can be made that Lily will always be affected by her mother’s absence. Unless she finds someone to replace her mother, she will probably always feel this way. This is how Lily is affected by her mother’s absence.
The gun goes off with a bang, and it vibrates throughout the walls in the house, through her frail bones, shaking even her insides. Lily’s mother was dead. The quote is extremely relevant to the first chapter because of its connections to Lily. A beehive is like it’s own little utopia; simply a small world living within a much larger one. The queen plays a similar role to a mother in the hive, just like we might say “Mother Nature” is Earth’s queen (or of course, mother!) The Queen Bee is the one who looks over all the other bees in the hive, like a mother looks over her children. A loving, caring mother is important to all developing living things and their well being. “She would kiss my skin till it grew chapped and tell me I was not to blame. She would tell me this for the first ten thousand years.” Those were Lily’s thoughts on what she’d e doing with her mother if they were reunited together in Heaven. She’s noticed the “queenlessness.” She’s noticed the lack of warm arms to run into.
ReplyDeleteLily’s small frame bashed into the wall of the hallway, and she fell, first onto bruised knees, and next onto shaky wrists, like a house of cards falling to pieces. Pictures on the walls seemed to stare, accusing, accusing. When her mother was gone, she was left in the “care” of an abusive father. “My daddy—who I called T. Ray because ‘Daddy’ never fit him…” One of the biggest challenges for Lily that came along with the absence of her mother was dealing with her poor excuse for a father. She had Rosaleen, of course, but how could she truly fill the empty hole in Lily’s life? An abused child, or a child that grows up without genuinely knowing the idea of love, will undoubtedly have severe problems later on in life. Mental problems and disorders, lack of trust, constant emotional pain, and the list goes on. Will Lily really be able to pull through without her mother by her side? Will Rosaleen’s fill-in be enough in the end?
The first chapter relates to the quote “The queen, for her part, is the unifying force of the community; if she is removed from the hive, the workers very quickly sense her absence. After a few hours, or even less, they show unmistakable signs of queenlessness." because the “queen” is Lily’s mother Deborah. Lily killed her mother when she was about 4 years old. Without her mother the house has turned in to chaos. This quote talks about how the hive can notice the queen is gone and then hive begins to make mistakes. Just like Lily and T.Ray know that Deborah is gone and both of them are making mistakes. “My daddy, who I called T.Ray because ‘daddy’ never fit him”. This quote shows what the death of Lily’s mother did to the relationship of Lily and her father T.Ray.
ReplyDeleteLily is affected by the "queens" absence because she doesn't have a mother. Without her mother everything went out of whack. Lily would be a much different person if she had her mother with her. T.Ray would also be different because her wouldn't be depressed all the time and he would be much kinder to Lily if Deborah were still alive. Lily also has a lot of guilt because she killed her mother with a gun when he was only 4 years old. Lily also is feeling lonely because she has no mother to take care of her, take her shopping, and do her hair, and make her pretty. On page 3 it says "The next ten thousand years she would fix my hair. She would brush it in to such a tower if beauty, people all over heaven would drop their harps just to admire it." before Lily was saying that when she is in heaven, her mother would do all this stuff for her.
In the first chapter Lily goes out to vote with Rosaline. They get made fun of and she pours chewing tobacco spit on their shoes. They call the police for “assault, theft, and disturbing the peace. Those people knew they weren’t supposed to be around there. Rosaline and Lily were regular bees and they were like queen because they were more dominant. The guys knew they couldn’t do anything but Lily got in trouble for spilling tobacco spit on their shoes
ReplyDeleteLily use to have a queen bee, sadly it died. The bee was Lil’s mom. Lily is not right because of the loss of her mother and having T-Ray is not helping. T-Ray is jerk and does nothing for Lily. When she went to dig up the tin and fell asleep T-Ray punished her for something she did not even do. The abstinence of the queen has made Lily run away and make bad decisions. If the Lily’s mom was still alive lily would have lots of friends and not have been running away and telling so many lies
Option A 7-eleven #1
This quote is relevant to the first chapter, because when the bees notice that the queen bee is gone, they start to worry. That is what happened with Lily and her Mom. Lily does not know where her Mother is, so she has feelings of absence towards the Mom. When the bees notice that the queen bee is gone, they will go looking for her. When Lily went through the box of her mother’s things, she found a picture that said Tiburon, South Carolina on it. She then thinks that the people who live their might know about her Mother. So, she and Rosaleen are walking all the way there, to get anything they can know about her Mom. She will keep looking for her and finding all these clues about her Mother and where she might be.
ReplyDeleteLily is affected by the queen’s absence because her mother is not there to help her with a lot of things. The Queen Bee shows the other bees what to do, so they won’t mess up. Since her mother is not there, she has to do these things on her own. Also, her father, T Ray does not love Lily at all so she can’t ask him about her Mother because he will just yell at her. Lily needs her Mothers love, and without it Lily will not understand why her Mother left. The bees can not survive without a queen. Lily can not survive without her mother because that is all she has, besides Rosaleen. But Rosaleen can’t be her Mother because she is a different skin color, so she can’t be a Mother figure to Lily. If she knew why her Mother left, she would try and fix whatever she did wrong.
Lily is a bee without her queen. Just like the worker bees miss the queen if she is removed from the hive, Lily misses her mother because her mother was removed from Lily's home. The bees lose their sense of direction and sense of purpose without their queen to anchor them. The summer Lily turns fourteen, her "life went spinning off into a whole new orbit" (1) because of bees. Bees visit Lily's room every night, and one morning when Lily is trying to capture a bee, the bee gives Lily a sense of direction by walking "along the coast of South Carolina on scenic Highway 17" (10). Lily doesn't understand yet that the bee is telling her to leave her home and find a new queen bee.
ReplyDeleteIt's important for Lily to find a new queen bee because she is deeply affected by "the queen's absence." Without her mother, Lily has no role model to teach how to be a girl. Mothers take their daughters shopping for clothes, but Lily is forced to wear clothes she makes for herself "in home economics class, cotton print shirtwaists with crooked zippers and skirts hanging" (8) below her knees. The day Lily missed her mom the most was the day she "was twelve and woke up with a rose-pedal stain" (13) on her panties. Unlike other girls, she had no mom with whom to share her passage to womanhood. Worst of all, Lily does not have a mom to protect her from her father's cruelty. T. Ray is both verbally and physically abusive to Lily. He calls her a slut and has made her kneel on grits since she was six years old (24). T. Ray is angry with Lily because she reminds her of her mother and he blames her for her mother's death, just like Scar blames Simba for Mufasa's death in The Lion King. These two children are told by adults that they must accept responsibility for the loss of their leader, even though they are only children. Children need a leader, a "queen bee" to guide them into adulthood.
Lily is a bee without her queen. Just like the worker bees miss the queen if she is removed from the hive, Lily misses her mother because her mother was removed from Lily's home. The bees lose their sense of direction and sense of purpose without their queen to anchor them. The summer Lily turns fourteen, her "life went spinning off into a whole new orbit" (1) because of bees. Bees visit Lily's room every night, and one morning when Lily is trying to capture a bee, the bee gives Lily a sense of direction by walking "along the coast of South Carolina on scenic Highway 17" (10). Lily doesn't understand yet that the bee is telling her to leave her home and find a new queen bee.
ReplyDeleteIt's important for Lily to find a new queen bee because she is deeply affected by "the queen's absence." Without her mother, Lily has no role model to teach how to be a girl. Mothers take their daughters shopping for clothes, but Lily is forced to wear clothes she makes for herself "in home economics class, cotton print shirtwaists with crooked zippers and skirts hanging" (8) below her knees. The day Lily missed her mom the most was the day she "was twelve and woke up with a rose-pedal stain" (13) on her panties. Unlike other girls, she had no mom with whom to share her passage to womanhood. Worst of all, Lily does not have a mom to protect her from her father's cruelty. T. Ray is both verbally and physically abusive to Lily. He calls her a slut and has made her kneel on grits since she was six years old (24). T. Ray is angry with Lily because she reminds her of her mother and he blames her for her mother's death, just like Scar blames Simba for Mufasa's death in The Lion King. These two children are told by adults that they must accept responsibility for the loss of their leader, even though they are only children. Children need a leader, a "queen bee" to guide them into adulthood.
This quote is relevent to the chapter becouse when Lilys mom died she had no source of guidance. T-Ray certainly wouldnt give it to her so she was on her own from then. Lily started relying on herself in the book. She knew that when she busted Rosealene out of the hospital, that she needed to take her life into her own hands and find a way to find more about her mother.
ReplyDeleteLily is affected by her mothers absence in a lot of way. she has this trauma of (what she thinks) killing her mother and that just adds to the already helpless lifestyle that she has come to own. with the absence of her mother Lily also gained a sort of toughness and wit from that time in which she hasnt had a mother. she busted out Rosealen and stole from a store all in the Same couple of days. This shows that she cares for the people she loves and will do anything to fit their needs.
4musketeers18
ReplyDeleteWhat would happen if the leader of a group suddenly disappeared? Chaos would manifest, and it would knock down whatever is in its path, making everything go awry. As the author of, Man and Insects, “The queen, for her part, is the unifying force of the community; if she is removed from the hive, the workers very quickly sense her absence. After a few hours, or even less, they show unmistakable signs of queenlessness." This quote relates to the first chapter of The Secret Life of Bees, in which the queen, Deborah, disappears. In the book, Lily writes,” My mother died when I was four years old.” Deborah is Lily’s mother, and with her gone, Lily herself starts to show evident signs of ‘queenlessness’. Deborah’s disappearance reminds me of Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez. President Chavez disappeared after going through surgery, this in turned caused the citizens of Venezuela to show signs of queenlessness, by rioting.
What would it feel like to have someone you love taken away? One would probably feel a mix of emotions ranging from depression to confusion. For Lily, the protagonists of The Secret Life of Bees, she experiences the latter. Lily is confused about how to apologize to her mother, she is confused about how to live without her mother, but worst of all Lily is confused about being left to live with her father, T. Ray. Having Deborah pass away affects Lily, because she is forced to live alone with T. Ray. In the book, Lily states, “My daddy – who I called T. ray because “daddy” never fit him…” From this quote, the reader can infer that T-Ray’s aggressive parenting techniques leave him as feeling more like a villain to Lily, as opposed to a father figure. T. ray and Lily’s relationship remind me of Oprah Winfrey and her mother. As a young girl, Oprah Winfrey was paid little attention by her mother, and was raised by her grandmother. Oprah Winfrey had weak parental figures, as did Lily.
4musketeers18
It was a lazy Saturday afternoon. The birds chirped and the creek glistened from the suns glow, like fireflies in the night sky. Meanwhile, the bees buzzed franticly. They bumped into each other, produced no honey, and stung anything that entered their territory. They had no queen. No one to lead or guide them. No role model. "The queen, for her part, is the unifying force of the community; if she is removed from the hive, the workers very quickly sense her absence. After a few hours, or even less, they show unmistakable signs of queenlessness." This quote is relevant to the first chapter of The Secret Life of Bees because Lily and T-Ray relationship is affected by the death of their queen, or Lily’s mother. After T-Ray catches Lily outside, he grows angry, and physically abuses her. As stated in the text, “I’d been kneeling on grits since I was six, but I never got used to the powdered glass feeling beneath my skin.” Lily’s mom died when she was 4 years old. Just two years after, T-Ray had already started taking his anger out on Lily. This relationship is similar to Judd and Shiloh in the book Shiloh. Judd was abused as a kid, and that scared him so he took his rage out on Shiloh. T-Ray was also scared by an experience, and takes it out on Lily.
ReplyDeleteNot having two parents has a great effect on people. In lily’s case, she lacks a mother. To make it worse, her father is mean to her and abuses her. The text states, “’He did not care about the clothes I wore clothes I made for myself in home economics class, cotton print shirtwaists with crooked zippers and skirts hanging below my knees, outfits only the Pentecostal girls wore.” If Lily had a caring father to take her shopping, she might feel a little better but the bottom line is she wants to have a mother. She wants to share the mother-daughter bond. She wants a mother to take her shopping, and buy her clothes. I think that Lily’s bad clothes are symbolic of her lack of a mom. While the clothes may make her look bad, her mother makes her feel bad. I think the bad clothes symbolizes the bad feelings she has from her mom’s death.
Taylor Davis
ReplyDeleteMs. Drosdick
Period 4
3/20/14
Option A
"The queen, for her part, is the unifying force of the community; if she is removed from the hive, the workers very quickly sense her absence. After a few hours, or even less, they show unmistakable signs of queenlessness." This quote from The Secret Life of Bees is relevant to the first chapter. The “queen” in the first chapter is metaphorically represented by Lily’s mom. Lily is feeling the absence of her mom or “queenlessness.” As the queen is the unifying force of the “bee community, Lily’s mom is the unifying force of her family. Lily even believes that her bedroom is like a hive because she thinks that bees are living in her bedroom walls. She is so convinced of this that she runs to T. Ray and shouts, “Bees!...There’s a swarm of bees in my room!” As bees become depressed if the queen dies, Lily and her father are depressed because of Lily’s mom’s death. In the book, Lily sulks, “And who but my mother could’ve understood the magnitude of driving me to junior cheerleading tryouts?” T. Ray misses Lily’s mom and he uses Lily as his outlet. In the first chapter, Lily runs out into the woods. Worried, T. Ray goes out of the house and shouts for her. He shouts, “Lileeee!” Still, he doesn’t hug her when he finds her and instead aggressively forces her to kneel on grits. He seems determined not to lose another “bee.”
Lily is affected by the “queen’s” absence. In chapter one, she says, “My first and only memory of my mother was the day she died.” She goes on to say, “This is what I know about myself. She was all I wanted. And I took her away.” Lily misses her mom most when it comes to girl stuff. T. Ray doesn’t care about girl stuff. He doesn’t even care about her birthday. Fourteen year old girls are always thinking about girl stuff. That’s why Lily always misses her mom. Lily has only one thing that she keeps to remind her of her mother. It is a tin box buried out in the yard. It’s filled with items that remind her of her mother and she visits it as often as she can. She obviously misses her mother. Lily said, “I placed her things inside the tin box and buried it out there late one night…”
Matthew Baker
ReplyDelete"The queen, for her part, is the unifying force of the community; if she is removed from the hive, the workers very quickly sense her absence. After a few hours, or even less, they show unmistakable signs of queenlessness." This quote takes such a big part in Chapter 1. In Chapter 1, we hear Lily expressing her loss for her mother, the sense of queenlessness is the feeling Lily gets without her mother. The loss of the queen is related to Lily’s loss of her mother.
Lily is affected by “the queen’s absence” in many ways. This absence drives her to do many things, like believe what T.Ray says about her mother. Lily has developed a sensitivity when her mother is spoken about. Whenever T.Ray says something about her mother that is completely untrue, she will stick to her ground, and if she starts to believe it, she will be hurt. For example, when T.Ray said that her mother never loved her, she took that very seriously, she wanted to believe that T.Ray was wrong but she had every reason to believe him.
Lena Corrado
ReplyDeleteJournal Entry: Option A
This quote is relevant to the first chapter in the sense that Lily and T-ray are the bees missing their queen, which is Deborah. In the quote it says that the queen of the hive is the unifying piece of the community. And, commonly, it’s the mother that brings and links the whole family together just like how Deborah held together Lily and T-ray. In the book, Lily accidently shot and killed her mother, thus breaking the peace and eliminating the ‘queen’. The family was then set into a downward spiral and became very dysfunctional. This dysfunctional and toxic, unloving behavior is the result of the mother dying and leaving, which refers back to the quote when it states that the bees quickly show signs of queenlessness. In chapter one, the text states,” I decided it would take four or five centuries to tell her about the special misery of living with T-ray.” In this quote, Lily was talking about all the things she would say and do when she would see her mom in heaven. By explaining how awful it was to live with the rest of the hive, or T-ray, to the queen, her mom, it shows that the quote relates to the first chapter. The bees needed their queen, and without her, the whole hive is put into chaos. In school, a teacher is like the queen bee. When a teacher is absent or leaves the room, the class becomes chaotic and messy. This also relates to Lily’s situation. Both are missing the main figure that holds the peace and keeps things in order. Without it, it all falls apart and is very hard to restore back to its full original manner.
Lily is affected by the queen’s absence in the sense that Lily has no mother to fulfill her needs. She has lived the duration of her life with just T-ray and Rosaleen. Rosaleen is the only mother figure she has, yet still, Lily is dramatically affected by her mother’s absence. In the book, she tells of her homemade, mismatched clothes and tangled hair. Certain things like those are taught and introduced by mothers, not fathers, especially not T-ray. Even Rosaleen doesn’t know how to handle some of Lily’s needs. On page 8, the text reads, “He did not care that I wore clothes I made for myself in home economics class...” this shows that Lily is affected by her mother’s absence because no one is there to show her all the things necessary for a young girl to know. In the news, I read about a baby tiger that was raised with a group of dogs. The tiger did not learn any of its natural instincts, but instead adapted the ways of a dog. By not having the lessons and knowledge given to the tiger by other tigers, it became different and unfit for its natural habitat. This relates to Lily because both were affected by the absence of someone (or some animal) that teaches them what they need to know.
#7eleven3
“Go to your room. Now!” my dad screamed as his cold as ice hands ripped me out from within the closet. I tried to fight against him, I tried to fight for my mother but, a four year old girl was nothing compared to her beastly dad. I ran scared to my room but when I turned and saw my mom running and yelling at him I screamed out, “Leave. Him. Alone.” That is when everything started to become a blur. I saw the gun in my mom’s hand, I saw my dad take it but, as it dropped to the ground I did something I never would of thought. I ran to the gun and picked it up. The weight of the gun weighed down on me like a 200 pound rock. Next thing I know there was a boom and my mother laid dead on the ground. This is Lily’s story and how she by accidently killed her mom, Deborah. In the beginning of chapter one in the secret life of bees, it states, “The queen, for her part, is the unifying force of the community; if she is removed from the hive, the workers very quickly sense her absence. After a few hours, or even less, they show unmistakable signs of queenlessness." The Queen bee is much like Deborah. The queen bee is also much like a mom, the one who takes care of everything. Without the mom or the queen the other bees or kids may become lost. According to the book on page 14 it states, “I would lie on the ground with the trees folded over me, wearing her gloves, smiling at her photograph.” This shows that like the bees, Lily sometimes is lost without her mom and always misses her greatly. Today, many kids must go through the devastating loss of losing their mother. It can sometimes be very hard and can cause some kids to become depressed. Death is a strong word that causes strong emotions.
ReplyDeleteMother’s Day was around the corner and in school we were starting to make cards and talk about Mother’s Day. For most kids, this was one of the best times of the year, you got to go to school with your friends and you didn’t have to do any work. But, I was different. I hated this time of the year… I didn’t have a mom. I had no one to do my hair, or pick out my outfit. No one to tuck me in, or no one to constantly tell me how pretty I am or how much she loved me. In the book, The Secret Life of Bees, Lily may be thinking this stuff daily. She by accidently killed her mom when she was four and all she wants is her mom back. Her mom is much like the queen bee. Without her, she is greatly affected. According to the book on page 13, it states, “The oddest things caused me to miss her. Like training bras. Who was I going to ask about that? ... But you know when I missed her the most? The day I was twelve and woke up with the rose-petal stain on my panties.” This shows that Lily is missing someone to get advice from, or someone to go to just to talk. Overall, Lily is greatly affected by “the queen’s absence” because she is missing a part of her that she will never get back. Today, almost 108 people die a minute. How many of these people could be mom’s now leaving their kid in a situation Lily is in? No one wants to see their mom die for it is much like the queen bee dying.
Week 2: Option A
ReplyDelete"The queen, for her part, is the unifying force of the community; if she is removed from the hive, the workers very quickly sense her absence. After a few hours, or even less, they show unmistakable signs of queenlessness." This quote relates to the first chapter because Lily has grown up with out a mother or queen. “My mother died when I was four years old.” Says Lily on page 2. Lily had grown up without a mother. She only had a father who had never acted much like a father to her. There home was never much of a home without Deborah. Just like how a beehive is never much of a home without the queen. The queen is a person that keeps everything in order. As soon as she is gone chaos begins. Just like how once Lily’s mom passed away T-ray and her fight nonstop.
Due to “the queen’s absence” Lily does not have a good relationship with her dad. The closest thing she has to a mother is Rosaleen. “Rosaleen had never had a child herself, so for the last ten years I’d been her guinea pig.” Rosaleen had been Lily’s motherly figure. Lily had to go through many major changes in her life without a mother there to help her. She often would lay awake at night wondering about Deborah. The majority of the time she wondered how her life would be if she had a mother there when she needed her the most. Usually a mother is a backbone to a daughter, she is there to help her through everything. Lily had it harder where she had to support herself and have her own backbone. Throughout the world there are many families that have no mother, no queen bee. A lot of the time this brings them closer together, but in some cases like Lily’s it tore them farther apart.
#4musketeers24
Week 2: Option A
ReplyDelete"The queen, for her part, is the unifying force of the community; if she is removed from the hive, the workers very quickly sense her absence. After a few hours, or even less, they show unmistakable signs of queenlessness." This quote relates to the first chapter because Lily has grown up with out a mother or queen. “My mother died when I was four years old.” Says Lily on page 2. Lily had grown up without a mother. She only had a father who had never acted much like a father to her. There home was never much of a home without Deborah. Just like how a beehive is never much of a home without the queen. The queen is a person that keeps everything in order. As soon as she is gone chaos begins. Just like how once Lily’s mom passed away T-ray and her fight nonstop.
Due to “the queen’s absence” Lily does not have a good relationship with her dad. The closest thing she has to a mother is Rosaleen. “Rosaleen had never had a child herself, so for the last ten years I’d been her guinea pig.” Rosaleen had been Lily’s motherly figure. Lily had to go through many major changes in her life without a mother there to help her. She often would lay awake at night wondering about Deborah. The majority of the time she wondered how her life would be if she had a mother there when she needed her the most. Usually a mother is a backbone to a daughter, she is there to help her through everything. Lily had it harder where she had to support herself and have her own backbone. Throughout the world there are many families that have no mother, no queen bee. A lot of the time this brings them closer together, but in some cases like Lily’s it tore them farther apart.
#4musketeers24
The quote about the loss of a queen is relevant to the first chapter by the loss of the queen representing the loss of Lily’s mom, Deborah. Both Lily and the fellow bees don’t know what to do with themselves without their so called “queen”. In the novel, it states, “Rosaleen had worked for us since my mother died.” This quote shows that Lily has experienced the death of her mother. Although her family found someone else to care for Lily, Rosaleen will never be as good as the original queen. I have friends with step-parents after their parents either died or were divorced. They may love their step-parents, but they will always have a special slot for their perfect queen, just like Lily has for the mother.
ReplyDeleteLily is affected by the queen’s absence by her self-esteem being lowered drastically. Lily feels very poorly about herself now that she lives a life of torment under T-Ray, and is shrouded by the guilt of the faded memory of shooting her mother. Lily often makes remarks stating how she feels about herself. The author states,” You can tell which girls lack mothers by the look of their hair. My hair was constantly going off in eleven wrong directions…” This shows that Lily thinks of herself very negatively, which is most likely a result of the loss of her mother. Some people who have low self-esteem slip into depressions or take their own lives. Hopefully, Lily will boost her self-esteem before she goes down a dark path.
Lily has to grow up without a mother. She has a father who treats her very badly. No one to confide in. Poor Lily has practically been raising herself since the day her mother died, the day Lily killed her. As stated in the text, “The queen for her part, is the unifying force of the community; if she is removed from the hive, the workers very quickly sense her absence. After a few hours, or even less, they show unmistakable signs of queenlessness.” This quote from The Secret Life of Bees is relevant to the first chapter because in just the first two pages, we readers are informed of the absence of Lily’s queen. On the second page is stated, “My mother died when I was four years old. It was a fact of life…” Lily explains how her life will forever be the same since the loss of her mother, and how every day she will sense her absence. Last year, I went to Florida without an adult. Just me and my cousin 1,300 miles away from our parents. I remember getting on line to board the plane, when my mom said she had to go. I thought I was going to be alright, I needed to show her how mature I was. When she turned the corner, I became my four year old self. I grabbed my cell phone and called her immediately. Tears filling my eyes, “Come back, I need you! I don’t want to go!” As Lily and the bees, I sensed my mother’s absence.
ReplyDeleteShould I ask him? No, that would be weird. He wouldn’t understand. I don’t know who to ask, oh this is a nightmare! On page 13 is stated, “The oddest things cause me to miss her. Like training bras. Who was I going to ask about that?... But you know when I missed her the most? The day I was twelve and woke up with the rose-petal stain on my panties. I was so proud and I didn’t have a soul to show it to…” Lily is affected by her mother’s absence in many different ways. Asking her father to take her to the store to get a bra was out of the question. He simply would not understand what Lily would need. There was a quote that said, “The bond between a mother and daughter is one that no one can replace.” This connects to the confusion filling her head about everything happing to her during puberty. This also explains that Lily’s father will never have the same bond with her that she would have shared with her mom.
Hannah Busch
ReplyDeleteImagining me without my mom is terrible. My mom is my best friend. She was literally there for me when i had a problem or helping me with my first few steps. I would not be able to live without her. I can imagine how Lily is feeling right now without her mom. "The queen for her new part, is the unifying force of the community; if she is removed from the hive, the workers very quickly sense her absence. After a few hours, or even less, they show unmistakable signs of queenlessness." This quote is relevant to this chapter because in chapter 1, the whole chapter was talking about how Lily's mom died. Lily's mom is the queen bee who is absent. In the book it states, "This is what i know about her. She was all i wanted. And i took her away." This shows that the workers sensed her absence. Lily misses her and she only wanted her. Now that she is gone, Lily is not the same. In the book, So.B. It, Heidi's Mom had disabilities and it was hard to spend time with her. Heidi basically doesn't have a mom. Heidi and Lily feel the same since both their mom's are gone.
I still remember the days after my grandma had died. It was very tough. Me and my mom could not stop crying. Tears fall every few minutes. I keep thinking of all the fun times we shared when she was healthy. It was a hard time period to go through. I can imagine Lily's life when her mom had died. Lily was affected by the queen's absence because she was sad, she misses her and she can never do what a normal girl can do. In the text it states, "The oddest things caused me to miss her." This means that she is still thinking about her mom a lot. In the text it states, "I wanted to go to Charm school at the Women's Club last spring, Friday afternoons for 6 weeks, but i got barred because i didn't have a mother. This just shows that she couldn't do what all the other girls were doing because she didn't have a mom.
The assassination of the “queen bee” in the Owens’ family home destroyed the lives of the family “bees” living within, stopping the production of the famed honey of happiness. The quote, “The queen, for her part, is the unifying force of the community; if she is removed from the hive, the workers very quickly sense her absence. After a few hours, or even less, they show unmistakable signs of queenlessness,” is relevant to the first chapter because Lily speaks of losing her mother, who was the unifying force in her home. These signs include regret, sorrow, and tension between the people living within the home. On page 8, once Lily finishes reminiscing about the incident that resulted in her mother’s death, she announces, “She [my mom] was all I wanted. And I took her away.” This shows how Lily deeply regrets the actions that occurred on that fateful day. In Lily’s case, the apprehension inside her home evolved, like an insect, into punishment by her father, T. Ray. On page 5, her father menacingly threatens, “ ‘You wake me up again, Lily, and I’ll get out the Martha Whites, you hear me?’ ” This shows how the lack of Lily’s mother destroyed the unity that was previous present in Lily’s home. This reminds me of the assassination of a president since afterwards the country fell into mourning, shock and chaos, symptoms similar to that of which occurred in the Owens’ except on a wider scale, of course.
ReplyDeleteLily is affected by “the queen’s absence” with her appearance, social status and lack of a mother. For her exterior look, Lily bemoans, on page 3, “you can tell which girls lack mothers by the look of their hair” and, on page 8, “I needed all the help that fashion could give me”. On page 8, she mentioned that an added mental pain to her lack of fashionable clothes was that because she was being forced to wear overly conservative clothes, “I might as well have worn a sign on my back: I AM NOT POPULAR AND NEVER WILL BE”. One of the few good things that occurred to Lily due to the fact that Lily needed someone to raise her after her mother died was that she met Rosaleen, who became her stand-in-mother. In the news, one often hears of orphans and the hard lives that they live, after their parents pass away, so I believe Lily should just be grateful for what she has (a warm bed, food and a loving caretaker) even though she now needs to live with the guilt of her deceased mother and an abusive father.
“The queen, for her part, is the unifying force of the community; if she is removed from the hive, the workers very quickly sense her absence. After a few hours, or even less, they show unmistakable signs of queenlessness.” This quote is very relatable to the first chapter in The Secret Life of Bees. In this chapter, Lily Owens recalls the death of her beloved mother. It is evident throughout the chapter that once her mother was gone, things began to spiral out of control. Lily’s household soon turned into a bee hive without a queen. T-Ray, Lily’s father, becomes an evil tyrant who enforces the rules strictly on Lily and doesn’t appreciate her at all. “I think he [T-Ray] believed it would stir up ideas of college, which was a waste of money,” Lily thinks when T-Ray doesn’t let her read in the peach stand. This means that without the queen, lots of things wouldn’t be done. This chapter and quote reminds me of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. When Harry’s parents are killed, he is forced to live with his bitter aunt Petunia and uncle Vernon. Losing his parents was like losing the queen bee and living with his aunt, uncle and cousin was like living with T-Ray.
ReplyDeleteYou sat huddled up with your hands covering your face. It’s almost like for that very moment you were thoughtless, action-less. With them gone, you feel lost; but you then realize that this means it’s time for a change and you’re going to have to do things on your own from now on. This is how Lily Owens felt after she lost her mother. She was affected in many ways by “the queen’s absence”. With a father that thinks nothing of her and a makeshift mother who is discriminated based off of her color, Lily has to do lots of things on her own. “He [T-Ray] did not care that I wore clothes I made for myself in home economics class,” Lily states. This shows that without her mother or someone that was willing to or could was able to buy her clothes, Lily had to make them herself. She was also deprived from going to school events like football games, pep rallies, and car washes. This scenario is similar to that in the Hunger Games. When Katniss Everdeen’s father dies, she has to support not only herself but her family by hunting and trading for food.
Queen bees are as important in the survival of the hive of bees as having a good defense in football. In so, without the queen present in their lives, the hive of bees doesn’t operate as well as they would with her. The “queen bee” in chapter one that is not present would be Deborah, Lily’s mom. “This is what I know about myself. She was all I wanted. And I took her away.” This quote of what Lily is thinking in chapter one shows that since her mother is gone, she feels different than she wants to. She wants her mother because just like bees without their queen, she felt a sense of motherless, which is a very difficult hurdle to overcome in anyone’s life. As it may be difficult to comprehend what that feeling is like if something that traumatic has not happened to us, during this chapter, we must ask ourselves; how important is our mother on our lives? Lily’s mother was a very important figure in her early life, and in this losing her was tough. In chapter one, we also discover that Lily often notices the absence of her mother in everyday life. This relates to the feeling of queenlessness that the bees feel when the queen is absent from their lives.
ReplyDeleteAs many people don’t realize, their parents have a huge impact on their lives and future. When a parent is lost in a child’s life, it is like a piece of the puzzle of the child’s life is missing, a very big piece and in so, the puzzle never works just right. Lily’s mom not being around in her life has a huge negative impact on Lily’s life. There are many things that a mother teaches her daughter that her father simply cannot. “Rosaleen knew less about fashion than T. Ray did, and when it was cold, God-help-me-Jesus, she made me go to school wearing long britches under my Pentecostal dresses.” This quote from chapter one shows one of the many problems that Lily is facing because her mother is not present in her life which in this case would be a problem with fashion. Both Rosaleen and T. Ray knew less about fashion than most people know about what high-tech weaponry is being used in today’s military. This problem also stems into many other problems with the people who go to Lily’s school. The empty slot where Lily’s mother should be is a problem many people in the world face when their parents’ divorce because they don’t get to see both parents as often as they could have.
People all over the world live very tough lives because they don’t have that one person in their life to make an easy and fun experience for them. The quote "The queen, for her part, is the unifying force of the community; if she is removed from the hive, the workers very quickly sense her absence. After a few hours, or even less, they show unmistakable signs of queenlessness,” is very relevant to the first chapter. This quote in other words means that there is someone special in others’ lives and if that person is removed from their lives, they will start to show hw much of a depression they are truly in. The ways that this quote relate to the first chapter is the explaining of the mom’s death and how Lily feels about life without her mom as well as at the end of the chapter she is about to lose her second favorite person or the new queen, Rosaleen, to three dishonorable men. On page 19, T-Ray finishes his story about Lily’s mom by saying “Then it just went off.” This quote means that Lily was the one that finished the argument between the two parents because she killed her mom. This connects with the first quote because Lily believes that without her mom life is much harder and she would rather run away instead of be with her other parental guardian. This is the same scenario has many people today, because in the news you can sometimes find stories about how kids run away from a harmful single parent that has been mistreating them their whole life or instead of running away, kids could sue their parent if they have a good enough defense in reasoning.
ReplyDeleteT-Ray can be described as many things harsh only because he is simply treating a peaceful little girl like a general at war. “The queen’s absence” affects Lily a lot mostly in bad ways. The absence of Lily’s mom who is referred to as the queen in the quote makes Lily’s life harder because now T-Ray can do whatever he wants to Lily and there is no one there to protect her because Rosaleen will have no say against T-Ray. An example of Lily being affected by her mom’s absence is when she had to put her knees on dried grits until they bleed even though she didn’t do anything wrong and T-Ray had only assumed she was with a guy. If Lily’s mom was in the picture, she would understand that Lily wouldn’t do that because according to Lily, she feels if the accident never had happened that her mom would love and cherish her for the rest of her life. On page 24, T-Ray says “Who were you out there with?” His says this in a shout and an obnoxious voice thinking he is right when only he had just assumed a lie not even caring what Lily has to say. From Lily’s perspective, if her mom was the one who found her lying there she might’ve said something like “What are you doing” or “Come back inside please,” neither of them being in a loud and angry voice. This is just like the book The Hunger Games because Katniss and Lily both want to run away from their homes to be free and both because of their parents, but the difference is that Katniss lost her king not queen as well as other people make her scared and desperately wanting to get away.
After reading the story of The Secret Life of Bees, we learn that one of the main characters Lily apparently remembers killing her mother, the “Queen bee”. The quote “The queen, for her part, is the unifying force of the community; if she is removed from the hive, the workers very quickly sense her absence. After a few hours, or even less, they show unmistakable signs of queenlessness.” The quote relates well to chapter one. This is because Lily’s life as well as her father’s or T-Ray’s life very negatively. T-Ray and Lily represent the other bees. Without Lily’s mother it seems that T-Ray had fallen apart and became quite the abusive father. Her father’s abuse can understood with the line in the book “He poured a mound of grits the size of an anthill onto the pine floor. “ Get over here and kneel down.”
ReplyDeleteLily also fell apart, aside from being abnormal than the usual teenage girl, she loss all the advice needed for her age. Do to her father’s abuse she, hated him, with a burning passion. When the book mentions “The noise that exploded around us” the noise they were talking about was the gun. The gun Lily had picked up. This would leave people traumatized and have nothing but guilt. Lily feels this quite often “and I took her away” as said in the book. Lily can somewhat be described a maimed girl.
Week 2, Option A
ReplyDeleteThis quote relates to the first chapter by comparing the queen to Lily’s mother, Deborah, who had died. “The queen, for her part, is the unifying force of the community.” This part of the quote is comparing the queen bee to Deborah. “If she is removed from the hive, the workers very quickly sense her absence.” This relates to Deborah dying, and how Lily felt when she was gone. Lily felt that everything in the world was going wrong when Deborah died. “After a few hours, or even less, they show unmistakable signs of queenlessness.” In the case of the story, Deborah’s death not only affected Lily in the short term, but in the long term as well. When Deborah originally died, Lily became grief-stricken. As she grew older, she did manage to get better, but the emptiness in her heart that had been left by her mother never seemed to leave her. This entire chapter is Lily trying to come to terms with her mother’s death, which she is having a very hard time doing.
Lily is affected by “the queen’s absence” in quite a few ways. First of all, as stated in the previous paragraph, she became extremely sad for a short period of time. In chapter one, she says “People who think dying is the worst don’t know a thing about life.” This implies that Lily feels that having to see a loved one or someone close to you die is even worse than dying yourself. After she managed to get over that, other problems began to arise. First of all, her mother had been her only protection against her cruel father, T. Ray. Without her mother, T. Ray had full control over Lily. The final problem that Lily had without her mother was the fact that making friends in school was very hard for her. She says “Making friends in school is hard, without a mother.” Friends are some of the most valued things that a person can come by, and not being able to have them can impact someone’s life greatly. This reminds me of Harry Potter. In the Harry Potter series, his parents die when he is very little, so he is forced to go live with his aunt and uncle, who for the most part, pretend that he doesn’t even exist. Before he goes to Hogwarts, he didn’t make any friends in the school that he went to. This relates to Lily’s situation since they have both lost a parent(s), and both have to live with relatives who couldn’t care less about the kids than they already do.
The Queen is Lily's mom. She died. So T-ray has a dark soul. He is mean. But I think he was a nice guy before his wife left. He seems broken without a women in his life. He's like a bee trying to find the queen.
ReplyDeleteLily is treated badly by T-ray. So it's hell for her. She is the 'queens daughter'. She is affected because a child needs a mother. So she is living without one. i couldn't imagine that.
The quote relates to the first chapter because Lily is struggling without her mother. She fantasizes about what she would do if her mom was still around or if she were to meet her again one day. Lily said "I would meet her saying 'Mother, forgive. Please forgive,' and she would kiss my skin till it grew chapped and tell me I was not to blame. She would tell me this for the first ten thousand years." Deborah was the queen, and she's gone. Now it affects Lily and T.Ray. Lily dreams about her life if her mother was still around, she remembers the day she died, but nothing else about her. Lily doesn't act the way she would if her mother were around. Lily shows that she lost her mother, her queen.
ReplyDeleteLily is affected in many different ways by "the queen's absence". If Deborah was still around, maybe T. Ray wouldn't treat Lily the way he does. Wouldn't make her go on the Martha Grits. All the other girls at Lily's school have nice clothing and good hair. Which shows that they have a mother around. Lily feels like she has to constantly try to make it so it seems like she has a mother too. "I felt half the time I was impersonating a girl instead of really being one." Her mothers absence makes it so that Lily tries to find someone like a mother, which is why she thinks of Rosaleen as sort of being a mother to her. Lily has a whole plan for when she sees her mother again one day, spending all the time with her, making up for while she was gone. Lily has many ways that she is affected by the queen's absence.
Lily has been through a lot throughout her childhood life that no one would want to go through. Her mother passed away when she was four years old, and now her dad tortures her unfairly. With the queen’s absence, I think Lily misses her mother, and wishes that she was still alive, but she is very strong and relies on Rosaleen mainly for feminine comfort. “That night I lay in bed and thought about dying and going to be with my mother in paradise.” I think, that since Lily was so small when her mother died, she doesn’t have many memories or had much time to spend with her mom to know really what kind of person she was. She even said “My first and only memory of my mother was the day she died.” I feel like she doesn’t miss her, she misses the person that she wanted her mother to be. Now all she wants from her mother is to catch up and get to actually know her when Lily meets her in paradise. This makes me think about the movie “Up” when Ellie has a miscarriage. She was devastated when her baby passed away. They made him/her a nursery with a crib and toys. But when she got the news she wasn’t sad because she knew her child but because she thought about what her child would become.
ReplyDeleteLoosing someone that you would love, look up to, and rely on is one of the hardest things. It’s difficult to stay strong, and catch on to societies tricks, lessons, and every day common sense. “You can tell which girls lack mothers by the look of their hair.” The quote before chapter one states “…After a few hours, or even less, they show unmistakable signs of queenlessness." The quote relates to the first chapter because when Lily’s mother passed away her hair was very unsystematic. “My hair was constantly going off in eleven wrong directions…” In this case the sign of queenlessness is Lily’s hair. She has no queen (mother) to rely on to help manage her hair. When I was young from kindergarten to third grade I had no idea how to do my hair. I had my mom put my hair in a tight pony tail every day. I don’t remember a day where I did my hair myself in elementary school. I do remember my teacher using me as an example in the class for a sentence and said “Sophie enjoys wearing her hair in a ponytail” and everyone knew it. I found it really hard to do my hair, because I had no experience with it. But through the years I caught on to how my mom did it. I currently wear my hair down on regular bases and for sports I easily put my hair in a loose pony tail, unlike how my mom used to do it tight. I now do my hair the way I want to and keep it looking good, ponytail or not. So I could now see where Lily is coming from when she says that here hair is constantly going off in eleven wrong directions because I couldn’t imagine my elementary school days with my hair in my face or looking a little messy without help from my mom.
ReplyDeleteThis quote is relevant to the first chapter in the fact that the “queen bee”, Mrs. Owens, was the piece of the family holding everything together. She was like the milk to the cereal, in other words, essential to the success of the rest. However, we all know that as the book says, she is no longer with them. Here however, instead of cereal becoming dry and tasteless without the milk, the Owens’ family falls into a near-abusive relationship between Lily and T-Ray. Rosaleen tries to step in and fix things but it is too late and the damage has already been done. Abusive relationships like the ones that Lily and T-Ray have are terrible and sadly are still a problem today. Perhaps T-Ray feels it is Lily’s fault for his wife’s death. Lily says herself that she thinks she might have accidentally shot her mother.
Lily is affected by “the queen’s absence” because she has memories of how fun it was to be with her even though she doesn't quite remember what she looks like. She remembers her perfume and her white gloves that she put in a box, and Lily sometimes sneaks out at night like a fox trying to steal chicken, ducks, and apple cider from farmers named Boggis, Bunce, and Bean hoping not to get caught just so she can put on those gloves again. The thing that she may miss the most is that her mother was there to care for her, and it only seems like T-Ray only wants to make her kneel on Mary Whites, referenced many times in the book. It isn't really a surprise that the family is in such a state of misery. They are poor people who are living in a hard time of racism, and they don’t have a mother/wife. I’m sure many families around the world face similar problems, and it just goes to show you what can go wrong when you turn to the “queen-less” side.
After reading the story of The Secret Life of Bees, we learn that one of the main characters Lily apparently remembers killing her mother, the “Queen bee”. The quote “The queen, for her part, is the unifying force of the community; if she is removed from the hive, the workers very quickly sense her absence. After a few hours, or even less, they show unmistakable signs of queenlessness.” The quote relates well to chapter one. This is because Lily’s life as well as her father’s or T-Ray’s life very negatively. T-Ray and Lily represent the other bees. Without Lily’s mother it seems that T-Ray had fallen apart and became quite the abusive father. Her father’s abuse can understood with the line in the book “He poured a mound of grits the size of an anthill onto the pine floor. “ Get over here and kneel down.”
ReplyDeleteLily also fell apart, aside from being abnormal than the usual teenage girl, she loss all the advice needed for her age. Do to her father’s abuse she, hated him, with a burning passion. When the book mentions “The noise that exploded around us” the noise they were talking about was the gun. The gun Lily had picked up. This would leave people traumatized and have nothing but guilt. Lily feels this quite often “and I took her away” as said in the book. Lily can somewhat be described a maimed girl.
“The queen, for her part, is the unifying force of the community; if she is removed from the hive, the workers very quickly sense her absence. After a few hours or even less, they show unmistakable sign of queenlessness”. This quote is relevant to chapter one because Lily’s mom is like the queen that has gone missing, leaving her family queenless. On page 3, paragraph 4, Lily says, “It would take four or five centuries to tell her [Lily’s mom] about the special misery of living with T-ray”. On page 6, paragraph 7, Lily says, “There was a suitcase stuck open on the floor. She [Lily’s mom] moved in and out of the closet dropping this and that into the suitcase, not bothering to fold them”. Also, on page 3, paragraph 4, Lily says, “His [T-ray] only kindness is for Snout, his bird dog”. I think that T-ray is angry at the loss of his wife and that she wanted to leave, and blames it on Lily, channeling his emotions at her, another woman in the house. The only thing that kept him from abusing Lily before was his wife. His abuse towards Lily is how he reacts to queenlessness. Also, he has a lot of affection for his dog Snout, because he is lonely, and snout is there to keep him company. I predict that Lily will gather up the courage to stand up to T-ray one day instead of just saying “yes sir” to him.
ReplyDeleteLily is affected by ”the queen’s absence” by being depressed that her mom is gone, and she is abused by T-ray without her. On page 2, paragraph 6, Lily says, “My mother died when I was four years old. If I brought it up, people would suddenly get interested in their hangnails and cuticles”. Lily is depressed by the loss of her mother, and whenever she brings it up, people ignore her, leaving her with no one to talk to about it because T-ray and Rosaleen also don’t want to talk about it. As an effect of her abuse by T-ray and curiosity about her mom, Lily runs away from home with Rosaleen and hitchhikes to Tiburon, South Carolina; her mother’s hometown.
4musketeers4
"The queen, for her part, is the unifying force of the community; if she is removed from the hive, the workers very quickly sense her absence. After a few hours, or even less, they show unmistakable signs of queenlessness." In the first chapter of "The Secret Life of Bees" this quote is used to describe the overall first chapter making this quote very relevant to what's happening in the story. In the story we learn that lily does not have a mother (the queen). Without her mother it is very hard for her do things that others girls do and ask questions that other girls would ask. As this quote shows if one was to see Lily they could sense the absence of her mother. One thing that became evident in the story that made Lily not be able to do what other girls do is when she couldn't go to etiquette school. As the text states, "I had thought my real chance would come from going to charm school at the Women's Club last spring, Friday afternoons for six weeks, but i got barred because I didn't have a mother..." This shows how the quote is relevant to the first chapter of this book because it shows how that without a mother you have unmistakable signs of "queenlessness" In the movie Despicable Me, you can tell that the little girl’s parents are gone and that they have no queen. This is show through their actions like hair sticking out in every direction like Lily's. This is how this quote is relevant in the first chapter.
ReplyDeleteWhen someone doesn't have a mother they can be affected in more than one way at the same time. In the story "The Secret Life of Bees" The main character Lily is affected by the absence of her mother physically and mentally. Mentally lily feels that she isn't as prepared as other girls for adulthood. In the story she says, "Like training bras. Who was I going to ask about that?" This shows how lily feels like she doesn't know as much as other girls because she can’t ask her mother questions or advice. Physically lily is not as presented as well as other girls. In the book she wears clothes she made in home economics class, with crooked zippers and skirts below her knees. This shows how lily was affected by "the queen's absence." In the movie Mrs. Congeniality Sandra Bullock gets a makeover and changes from clueless to fashion model. Unlike Sandra though lily doesn't have a makeup team (a mother) to make her look better and learn what she’s supposed to learn. This is how lily is affected by "the queen's absence."