“You think you want to know something, and then once you do, all you can think about is erasing it from your mind.”
― Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees
The mind.
The holder of our knowledge, thoughts, and memories. The mind travels with us along this river called life collecting everything along the way, and once the mind has grasped knowledge of something there is no undoing it. Ignorance can truly be bliss for some people since there are days in everyone’s life where the mind acts more like a battlefield. Where a person’s thoughts, which are conjured up by the mind, fights with the realities a person sees. Or where the truths someone thought they wanted to know but can never forget lies. These thoughts and voices can begin to carry so much weight that they affect the person’s outlook on life and the way they treat people around them. The struggle to silence the voices of a person’s thoughts is a battle only that individual can fight and most of the time it can become a day to day struggle.
In Sue Monk Kidds’ novel, The Secret Life of Bees the main character, Lily Owens found herself far from home in search of the truth of her mother’s life and death. In hopes of relinquishing her own baggage of thoughts concerning her mother that she’s had to carry. Kidd incorporates figurative language and internal dialogue to breakdown the complex internal emotions that Lily began to hold towards her mother.
WARNING: NOVEL SPOILERS BELOW ! ! !
As Lily grew up she held any memory of her mother very dear and close to her heart. The image Lily had about her mother was confusing, since at times she questioned whether or not her mother truly wanted her after her marriage with her father, T Ray, had turned out to be so bad. Lily also had to deal with the memory of the day, when she was only four years old, and accidentally pulled the trigger on the gun that took her mother’s life. Nevertheless, Lily loved and admired her mother dearly, and she tried to keep her thoughts concerning her mother in a positive light. Still at times, Lily’s couldn’t think about her mother without her mind drifting into a dark place that held the thoughts which left her with uneasy feelings in regard to her mother.
“[Lily] This is what I know about myself. She was all I wanted. And I took her away”(Kidd 8).
Kidd uses the metaphor of the mind having a “steel plate” inside of it that can hold back certain thoughts that someone doesn’t want to think of. Lily had a stubborn attitude that aligns with this, “steel plate“, comparison when it came to thinking of her mother because she knew the overwhelming amount of negative thoughts that came with it. Kidd uses another metaphor to describe the mind containing “elevator doors” and, contrary to the “steel plate“, these are what enable thoughts to venture into the mind.
This was the battle Lily was fighting when she attempted to think about her mother.
All she wanted to think about was her mother but now her conflicting thoughts and emotions about her mother were overtaking her, and she didn’t know whether or not to let her mother on the elevator of her mind. Kidd uses these metaphors to better portray to readers the inner feelings Lily was having that we can all relate to.
“[Lily] Let me on, my mother was saying. Let me on the damn elevator”(Kidd 171).
Kidd also incorporated the use of internal dialogue between Lily’s conflicting emotions in regards to her mother in order for readers to have a deeper insight of Lily’s mental state. Lily is seen going back and forth in her own mind between thinking about her mother which could come with a cost of unwrapping the truth of things she may not be able to handle, or blocking these thoughts out and continuing on with her life completely oblivious to these wrapped up truths.
“[Lily]… and I told myself I could think about anything I wanted, except my mother, so naturally she was the only thing that wanted on the elevator…. Let me on, my mother was saying”(Kidd 170-171).
“[Lily] Well, fine. I pulled out my bag and examined my mother’s picture… Pulling on her gloves, I noticed how tight they fit all of a sudden… By the time I was sixteen… My palms would split the seams of the gloves, and I would never wear them again”(Kidd 171).
“[Lily] No, I breathed… A scared whisper. No, I will not think about this. I will not feel this”(Kidd 171).
This toggle in Lily’s mind comes from her fear of the image she’s always had of her mother being altered after she learns the truth about things. Once you know the truth there is no going back. This inner dialogue gives the readers a richer insight on the metaphors previously used by Kidd to describe the battle in Lily’s mind.
At the end of it all, the author knew that this metal strife Lily was facing is something we all as humans encounter. I could go on and on about the struggles I, myself, face day after day when it comes to the thoughts and ideas my mind comes up with. It’s almost as if my mind never has an attitude of, “Hey, I know you’ve had a long day, let me conjure up some positive thoughts that will boost your self-esteem and help you be at peace with all that’s happened today.” Instead it’s more like, “Hey, I know you’ve had a long day, so lets get some thoughts going that’ll make you question every last thing that happened today, and create some scenarios in your head of things that probably aren’t happening but will make your worry meter spike!” We all have to take the bad with the good in this life, and that’s an example of the bad we have to deal with everyday, the negative aspects of the mind.
Learn to combat the bad thoughts with good thoughts and take the time to pray everyday for strength and guidance. Spread love and positivity because you never know what kind of mental battle someone is really facing.
Citations
- Kidd, Sue Monk. The Secret Life of Bees. Penguin Books, 2013.
The Secrets Within 