Sue Monk Kidd was born and raised in Georgia. Today she is considered to be a novelist, writer, and memoirist. Kidd graduated from Texas Christian University with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing. Most of her twenties was spent working as a Registered Nurse and also as a Nursing Instructor. Her first start into writing was when she wrote a personal essay which was later published in the Guideposts and Reader’s Digest. She has writing multiple books including, The Secret Life of the Bees, God’s Joyful Surprise, When the Heart Waits, and the Dissident Daughter.Kidd writes about feminist theology, and after enrolling in a graduate course at Emory University she began to write more fiction. Sue Monk Kidd is most famous for Secret Life of the Bees, The Mermaid Chair, and Traveling with Pomegranates.
The Secret Life of Bees
After three and a half years of deep thought and writing, Sue Monk Kidd published her first novel, The Secret Life of Bees. She credits most of her influence of the novel to her hometown Sylvester, Georgia. The novel was published in 2002 which “became a genuine literary phenomenon” (http://www.suemonkkidd.com/
The Secret Life of Bees is a story set in South Carolina in 1964, about a young fourteen year old girl named Lily Owens who grew up in a patriarchal household. Her mother was killed when she was four, leaving Lily to be raised in a harsh culture where her father makes the rules. The minimal feminine attributes from their housekeeper Rosaleen end up finding Lily’s true home after many events post Civil Rights Movement. In the first chapter of this novel, Lily’s thoughts refer to her Christian upbringing; an excerpt from her novel,
“I want to say the bees were sent to me. I want to say they showed up like the angel Gabriel appearing to the Virgin Mary, setting events in motion I could never have guessed."
Indications like these, in her novel refer to the culture that Sue Monk Kidd represents in reality. She graduated from Texas Christian University and later studied feminist theology. References to this new movement of reconsidering the gender roles of women in religious practice are briefly touched in her novel, The Secret Life of Bees. Sue Monk Kidd’s struggle for gender equity is paralleled to the gender inequity of Lily’s life and the adventure with her housekeeper Rosaleen.
The civil Rights Act meant for Rosaleen the right to vote. This movement changed the lives of many women in America and was the very cause of Lily’s decision to run away from her father. In the novel, Rosaleen encountered a harassing scene with three white men on her way to register to vote. As a result, Rosaleen and Lily are put in jail where Rosaleen was treated with misogamy by being brutally beaten. Through this, Rosaleen and Lily decide to follow the belongings of Lily’s mother, Deborah, to discover a new home. They end up at the Boatwrights who are a family of Beekeepers.
This family, of women, honors a “Black Mary” or “Black Madonna”; she gives them hope. Lily learns from these women and begins practicing their religion. The environment she transitions to, mid novel is a matriarchal culture of strong colored women who built their honey business from their religious values of Mary. This family shows Lily love and despite the racial discriminations throughout the novel, Lily realizes that the Boatwright sisters are her family.
Lily’s spiritual quest is similar to Sue Monk Kidd’s feminist theology. Her culture of religion and family make statements of equality, as do the themes in A Secret Life of Bees.
- Tina Duarte
If you wish to read The Secret Life of Bees refer to:
If you wish to visually experience The Secret Life of Bees, it is also available on screen.
The Secret Life of Bees was one of Sue Monk Kidds greatest novels. Its popularity among communities sprung the idea of transferring the novel into a film. In this trailer, the themes discussed above are briefly touched.
-Tina Duarte
The Mermaid Chair
Sue Monk Kidd wrote The Mermaid Chair in 2005. This novel is about a woman, Jessie who is called to her home on an island where there is this chair. This is a chair in which legend states, was a mermaid before the conversion. Jessie has had to deal with multiple things throughout her life including her mother’s acts of violence against herself, because of her leaving to this island she leaves behind her husband, Hugh, who she is in love with but is not the life in which she wishes to live. On this island she is drawn to Brother Thomas, a monk who is about ready to take his vows. After meeting Brother Thomas her marriage with Hugh unwinds as she has new ideas spiritually, artistically, and erotically. While at this island, Jessie is drawn to the beauty of the land, struggle of everyday life, and the denial of the freedom that she feels while on the island. Jessie later decides that the qualities of the chair are no way to fix the problems that she incurred in this book including the behavior of her mother and her feelings for Brother Thomas.
This story parallels many themes that are discussed in our class. One of the themes in particular discussed in the class is about how a woman belongs to the man she marries. This is seen in marriage vows when a man says he will be loving and faithful while the woman says she will be obedient and faithful. In the book this seen when Jessie says, “All my life I’ve thought I needed someone to complete me, now I know I need to belong to myself” (Kidd 55). Jessie believes that she needs Brother Thomas and her husband Hugh to make her complete or to make her life worth what it is supposed to be but she soon realizes that all she needs is to be her own person and before she can make others happy she first needs to make herself happy. This theme is prevalent throughout all of the readings in class. Many of the times, for example, in Medea, she gives everything up to be with her husband and when he does her wrong she is lost and does not know what to do when in fact all she needs is herself and she belongs to herself and not to her husband. I believe these two stories go hand in hand because they both have the same meaning in the end. The meaning that woman do not belong to the men that they marry, they are not objects, but in fact their own separate persons. I also think those women who believe their only job in life is to have children and to take care of the house may not be living their lives to the fullest. It is those women who go out and live life to the fullest without cares and realize themselves come first are those women who are getting the most out of life.
Traveling with Pomegranates
Sue Monk Kidd is an American writer that is mostly known for her novels about spiritual search. However, her last book published in 2009, Traveling with Pomegranates: A Mother-Daughter Story, is built around myths of motherhood. This book is based on non-fiction, as Sue Monk Kidd along with her daughter Ann Kidd Taylor, describe their experiences on a trip to Greece and France. During this trip, both women are struggling with their lives and their relationship to each other. As they try to understand each other, they explore the myths and symbols surrounding each country, and talk about how these myths relate to them and the relationship between mother and daughter.
As we have studied in this class, motherhood is a social construct that surrounds women, as all women are expected by society to become mothers. For those that do become mothers, it is difficult sometimes to maintain a healthy relationship with their daughters, as they may become distant (both physically and emotionally). One myth that is constantly explored in this story is the myth of Demeter and Persephone. This Greek myth talks about a goddess loosing a daughter to a male god. This god Hades, wanted Persephone to live with him as his wife in the underworld. Therefore, Zeus told him that he could have her. When Demeter found out that her mother was missing she was really angry and decided to starve the human race. Persephone was returned back to her mother eventually, but she had eaten four pomegranate seeds which is why she had to spent four months in the underworld with Hades. This is where the title Traveling with Pomegranates, comes from. Sue Monk Kidd relates this myth to her life, by saying that she was loosing her daughter to adulthood. She represents the culture of motherhood, as many mothers go through the same situation of loosing daughters to adulthood and marriage. In my opinion she, and her writings are an inspiration since they help women find the peace that religion can only provide, as well as to be a model to other mothers that may be dealing with the same situation.
“It shocks me how I wish for… what is lost and cannot come back”
-Kidd, Traveling with Pomegranates, pg. 157
It is both happy and sad to see a daughter grow. It is happy to see them be successful and become mothers, but it is sad to see them move away to make their own lives. Unfortunately, this is part of life. In Traveling with Pomegranates, Sue Monk Kidd is aware of this fact as she realizes that it has always been this way as ancient Greek mythology tells stories about daughters leaving their mothers to go and make their own lives.
Why Is She A Great Artist?
We believe that Sue Monk Kidd is a great artist because she is so influential to not only teenagers but to all women. She stresses the importance of motherhood and family but also at the same time empowers women to be themselves and not to be confined to gender stereotypes. She does this in many ways in all of her novels by making a woman the main character and having her struggle with stereotypes and having them overcome them through their journey. In all of her books she tries to convey her culture and spirituality to the reader so that woman of all ages, race, and ethnicity can relate. Sue Monk Kidd portrays the idea of a great artist because she is able to let woman overcome these stereotypical ideas of a woman but allow them to realize what is important to them, which is being themselves and not let anyone oppress them. She demonstrates feminism through her writing by illustrating settings of spiritual conquest; feminist theology and motherhood and this is what makes her an exceptional and influential artist.
Works Cited
Sue Monk Kidd, Author of The Secret Life of Bees and The Mermaid Chair. Web. 18 Apr. 2010.
Kidd, Sue Monk. The Mermaid Chair. New York: Viking, 2005. Print.
Kidd, Sue Monk. The Secret Life of Bees. New York: Viking, 2002. Print.
Kidd, Sue Monk. Traveling With Pomegranates A Mother and Daughter Journey to the Sacred Places of Greece, Turkey, and France. Penguin Group USA, 2010. Print.
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