Religion, Guilt And Forgiveness

Bzz Bzz Bzz, friends! How was your weekend? Was it great? Today, I'm going to continue discussing about The Secret Life Of Bees. Our main focus is the theme of the novel which is Religion, Guilt & Forgiveness.

In novel The Secret Life Of Bees itself talking about religion is a common thing. In this case we can understand that the Boatwright sisters are kind of religious persons where they keep the statue of the Black Mary in their house. In Chapter 6, when August had a gathering with the Daughters Of Mary in her pink house, she told the stories of the Black Mary again as there are new visitors. "The people called her Our Lady of Chains. They called her that not because she wore chains…" "Not because she wore chains," the Daughters chanted. "They called her Our Lady of Chains because she broke them."(page 137)

In the last pages of The Secret Life Of Bees, Lily stated that she visits Black Mary everyday as she feels like Black Mary has helped her through in her live. "Each day I visit Black Mary, who looks at me with her wise face, older than old and ugly in a beautiful way.......She is the muscle of love, this Mary." (page 374).

Being a religious kind of person teach us to hold on a faith and believe that God will always be there for us anytime an anywhere. 

As we can see from the novel, in Chapter 1, Lily suffers tremendous guilt for killing her own mother when she was four years old and at night she dreams of dying, meeting her mother in paradise, and asking for her forgiveness. "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." (page 30) In Chapter 2, Lily feels empty inside and she needs something. "I opened my mouth. I wanted something. Something, I didn’t know what. Mother, forgive. That’s all I could feel. That old longing spread under me like a great lap, holding me tight." (page 69 & 70)

At the end of the novel, when August tells Lily about Deborah, Lily becomes irate about her mother's abandonment. Lily can't grasp the concept of a nervous breakdown; all she hears is that her mother left her to come to August's house. She isn't ready to let her mother off the hook, forgiving her for seeking her own health first and leaving Lily with T. Ray. “Every person on the face of the earth makes mistakes, Lily. Every last one. We’re all so human. Your mother made a terrible mistake, but she tried to fix it.” (page 317)

In Chapter 14, Lily is mulling over what August has told her about her mother. She vacillates between being angry at her mother for leaving on the one hand, and better understanding her mother's motives on the other. Lily ponders the idea of why it is so difficult for people to forgive."In the photograph by my bed my mother is perpetually smiling on me. I guess I have forgiven us both, although sometimes in the night my dreams will take me back to the sadness, and I have to wake up and forgive us again." (page 373)

However, from all evidences that we found in the novel about guilt and forgiveness, there is someone else Lily must forgive: herself. Lily must forgive herself for killing her mother, and she must understand that this was an accident that she can't go back and fix. She has to go on, realizing she is a human being worthy of love.

All and all, we believe that this theme is very important to be highlighted as it is really related with our lives. Having a faith to God help us to deal with all the difficulties that we face in the world and being a forgiver can improve ourselves as an individual. Bye, peeps! Have a nice week.

References:

1. https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/s/the-secret-life-of-bees/critical-essays/themes-and-symbols-of-the-secret-life-of-bees