Imagery on The Secret Life of Bees



Sue Kidd’s Secret Life of Bees consists of a young girl thriving for stability in a tough culture. In the beginning of the novel Kidd helps the reader understand the text better by using imagery. To back this statement up, the reader can tell how she was sleeping and she got swarmed by bees. She helps you picture it by using imagery: “I heard them tunneling through the walls of my bedroom, sounding like a radio turned to static in the next room.” Another example of how she uses imagery is stating “I watched their wings shining like bits of chrome in the dark and felt the longing build in my chest.” She describes what the bees are doing and what they even look like at the moment it happened. The last example of imagery used by Kidd is her telling about her mom: “Mother forgive. Please forgive, and she would kiss my skin till it grew chapped and tell me I was not to blame.” That’s what she was thinking of that night as she lay in bed. So that was what the first few pages were about and how the author uses imagery in many ways.