The Secret Life of Bees

“This is what I know about myself. She was all I wanted. And I took her away.”

Lily establishes early on that her whole life, up until the summer of 1964, has been lived around her guilt surrounding her mother’s death. Even before Lily knew that she had been holding the gun when it went off and killed her mother, she was carrying the burden of being motherless. Later, when Lily learns what happened that day when she was four years old, the burden is intensified and further complicated as now she has to live with the knowledge that what she has always longed for is gone because of her.

“‘You’ve got six brothers and sisters?’ I’d thought of her as alone in the world except for me.” 

Lily is responding to Rosaleen telling her about her family in this passage. This moment is important because it shows how little awareness Lily has of those around her. This self-centered understanding of others is a typical feature of childhood, and given that this is a coming-of-age story, the reader can anticipate that this moment of realization will be one of many. Lily, at this point in the story, only understands others as they relate to her, especially when it comes to Rosaleen. Lily’s implicit bias also appears in this passage as her limited understanding of Rosaleen is informed by Rosaleen’s being a Black domestic worker.