Setting & Flight
This is the business that Lily's father operates.
What is a peach farm?
This is the year A Secret Life of Bees is set in / takes place.
What is 1964?
This was the defining trauma in Lily's life.
What is shooting her mother by accident?
This is what Lily saw in the store that enabled her to find the Boatwright sisters.
What is Black Madonna honey?
This is the title for the group of women who come to worship on Sundays at the Boatwright home.
Who are the daughters of Mary?
This is the name of Lily's cold abusive father.
Who is T. Ray?
This famous speech was delivered in August 1963, just a few short months before the plot of our story takes place.
What is I have a dream by Martin Luther King?
This is how old Lily was when she accidentally shot her Mom.
What is four years old?
This sister is the oldest, the head of the household, the wisest and runs a successful honey business.
Who is August?
This is what the Daughters of Mary call the statue that represents Mary.
What is Our Lady of Chains?
What is come out from behind the walls and fly in her bedroom at night?
This broad movement of reform and protest was happening at this time in the United States.
What is the civil rights movement?
This is the name of Lily's Mom.
Who is Deborah?
This sister is the middle child. She plays the cello and does not like Lily.
Who is June?
This is the career that Zach has chosen for himself.
What is a lawyer?
This is what Rosaleen wants to do.
What is register for vote?
This is the idea or believe that some people are superior to others based on their race.
What is racism?
This is the mean thing that T.Ray said to Lily about Lily's Mom.
What is that her mother didn't care about Lily and abandonned her?
This is the youngest sister. She is intellectually impaired, friendly, open, and very sensitive.
Who is May?
This is the year the story takes place.
What is 1964?
This is the act (law) that enabled black people like Rosaleen to vote.
What is the Civil Rights Act (1964)?
IT IS OK TO NOT REPLY WITH A QUESTION.
Does the reader of the story have certainty as to how Deborah was killed? Why or why not?
No. Limited to the perspective of the first-person.
a. Lily is a child. Her understanding is incomplete. She is able to be manipulated by T. Ray. Children often are.
b. Lily's memories are incomplete, fragmented.
IT IS NOT NECESSARY TO ANSWER WITH A QUESTION.
Respond to the following statement.
What role do men play at the Boatwright household?
The story is not told through their eyes. They are important, but it is not their experience that is shared.
Zach gave this gift to Lily to encourage her.
What is a green notebook for her to write in?