The opening scene of The Secret Life of Bees highlights the unusual nightly visitors to Lily's room: swarming bees that only she is able to see. The bees arrive during the eventful summer of 1964. She can hear buzzing in the walls of her bedroom during the day, and at night Lily lies in bed watching bees enter through cracks in the wall and fly freely in circles, their wings shining in the dark room. Rosaleen warns that bees are a bad omen since they "swarm before death," but Lily considers them a gift from above, sent to set important events in motion much as the angel Gabriel was sent to the Virgin Mary in the Bible. Both bees and the Virgin Mary play important roles in Lily's story and are notably introduced in the opening three paragraphs of the novel.
No comments:
Post a Comment