40 pages • 1 hour read
Sue Monk KiddThe Secret Life of Bees
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2001A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 5-6Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 5 Summary
Lily recounts the first week at the Boatwright sisters’ as one of pure relief. August has come to an agreement with Lily and Rosaleen that they will work off their room and board and other necessities that August provides for them. No one questions Lily’s story about her parents or their situation. Rosaleen becomes close to May, the youngest of the Boatwright sisters, whom Lily identifies as being “childlike” in her adult body. May has a number of odd habits that neither Rosaleen nor Lily can initially make sense of. Rosaleen notices that her impulse to break out into song, specifically “Oh! Susanna,” takes place when something bad is being brought to her attention. Rosaleen explains to Lily that May does fine as long as things are light and happy, but once she sees or learns about something bad, she is sent into a crying fit. “Oh! Susanna” is May’s way of warding off her sadness.
Lily overhears a conversation between August and June one night in which she learns that June’s uneasiness and possible disdain for their new guests stems from Lily’s being white. This is a revelation to Lily as she has never experienced or heard of people being rejected because they are white. This overheard conversation also reveals to Lily that both August and June know she is lying, and while June feels strongly that they should ask Lily the truth, August trusts her feeling that they need to give Lily and Rosaleen shelter and wait for Lily to come to them with the truth when she’s ready.
Lily helps August about the bee house, while Rosaleen helps May in the house. Every evening, they all watch the news together, then pray to the Black Mary statue in the parlor, which the sisters call Our Lady of Chains. August teaches Lily about beekeeping and soon brings her to see the hives. She tells her, among other things, that a swarm is “a queen and a group of independent-minded bees that have split off from the hive” (93). As August spends more time with Lily both in the work with the bees and in her off-time, Lily begins to hope that August will never send her back to T. Ray. The development of this relationship causes tension not only with June but also with Rosaleen, who feels abandoned and unneeded by Lily.
In this chapter, August reveals to Lily what happened to May and why she is the way she is. When May and her twin sister, April, were 15, April experienced an incident of overt racism, and when confronted with the reality of the racist world she would have to live in, she spiraled into a depression that ended with her death by suicide. May never recovered from this loss, as she was deeply attached to April. August describes May’s way of being as that of someone who cannot separate themselves from the overwhelming griefs of the world. Lily learns about the “wailing wall” that May has built—the one Lily found on her walk—and continues to fill with documented tragedy as a way to place her griefs on something other than herself.
Chapter 6 Summary
Lily and Rosaleen meet Neil, the man who is pining after June. May tells Rosaleen and Lily that Neil has been asking June to marry him for years, and while June is “sweet on” Neil, she always turns him down. May says this is because June was left at the altar many years ago by the first man she loved and ever since has said she will never get married again. Neil inquires about Lily and Rosaleen, and Lily finds it difficult to keep her story straight.
On the first Sunday that Rosaleen and Lily are present, the sisters hold a church service in the pink house for the Daughters (and one son) of Mary. August decides to tell the story of the Black Mary statue in the parlor, which they call Our Lady of Chains, noting that some of those present have not heard the story before. In the time of slavery, she recounts, a slave named Obadiah came upon a block of wood floating in the river. It was sculpted into a Black woman, her arm raised and her hand in a fist. Believing the Lord had sent the figure, he took it out of the water and brought it to the praise house. By the following Sunday, all were worshipping the statue, and the oldest slave among them declared that the statue was Mary, mother of Jesus. Threatened by the statue’s power, the slave master took her away and chained her up 50 times, but she freed herself and escaped back to the praise house without help each time. They named her Old Lady of Chains not because she had been chained but because she had broken free of them.
At the end of the service, all the members are invited to touch the heart of Our Lady of Chains. Lily hesitates but feels compelled to join, and once everyone has had their turn, she approaches Mary. When she does, June stops playing the piano, and everyone falls silent. Lily faints, June retreats to her room, May goes to the wailing wall, and when Rosaleen tries to comfort and care for Lily, Lily pulls away. Lily considers being able to touch Mary’s heart as a sign that she can finally tell August the truth.
Chapters 5-6 Analysis
Lily experiences, for the first time, what it is like to be disliked because of her skin color. Lily can no longer escape or ignore her whiteness as she says, “I felt white and self-conscious sitting there, especially with June in the room. Self-conscious and ashamed” (89). While Lily is still unaware of why June has responded to her the way she has, Lily still feels out of place. The shame she recognizes is associated with the threat that whiteness places on these women—a white threat that Lily is part of—and the haven that they have provided for Lily and Rosaleen.
When August starts teaching Lily about beekeeping, she explains what a “swarm” is: “a queen and a group of independent-minded bees that have split off from the hive” (93). While in beekeeping swarms are bad and August dislikes them, one can see the pink house full of unmarried sisters and occasionally Daughters of Mary as a type of swarm.
In her longing for a mother, Lily wants August to love her, and because of this Lily feels like she can’t be honest with August because it might sacrifice that growing relationship. When August explains May’s inability to protect herself from the grief of the world, Lily wonders how May would respond to Lily’s own story of grief and sadness. Lily thinks to herself:
Did this mean if I told May about T. Ray’s mounds of grits, his dozens of small cruelties, about my killing my mother—that hearing it, she would feel everything I did? I wanted to know what happened when two people felt it. Would it divide the hurt in two, make it lighter to bear, the way feeling someone’s joy seemed to double it? (95).
This is a significant moment for Lily because she is coming to realize that everyone around her has their own griefs to bear, and that it is possible that in giving her grief a name, a voice, and some light, she may be able to carry her own a little more easily.
June is complicated as a character in this section as her own personal heartbreak is introduced. Lily learns that June refuses to marry her long-term sweetheart, Neil, because she was left at the altar by the first man she loved. Like May protects herself from bad news by humming “Oh! Susanna” or spending time at the “wailing wall,” June has learned to protect herself from ever experiencing that kind of heartbreak again by not ever giving herself over fully to love.
Lily feels her most alienated at the Daughters of Mary service. Before she attempts to touch Mary’s heart, she watches Rosaleen, whom she “hardly recognized for the way she leaned forward in her chair, chanting along with them” (109). Lily is struggling to understand how she fits in this house where Rosaleen looks like she belongs and Lily doesn’t.
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By Sue Monk Kidd
