I enjoyed reading The Secret Life of Bees but let's face it...
I don’t think The Secret Life of Bees should be taught in schools today. As I mentioned in one of my previous blogs, “dipping your pen in someone else’s blood” and writing about a struggle that is not your own is something that has recently been regarded as extremely harmful and trivializing. The Secret Life of Bees has been challenged to be censored or banned many times. One case used again this novel was for this reason as something that was once viewed as acceptable, no longer is. In Texas, the novel was also challenged because of the derogatory language used retaining to a racial and sexual context.
Graphic Violence and Abuse
As the novel deals with extreme racism, much violence is used against black people like Rosaleen and Zach because of the colour of their skin. However aside from racially motivated violence is parental abuse, both physical and verbal, to Lily from T. Ray, Lily’s father.
Triggering Death Scenes
The scenes depicting death within the novel may also be used as an argument to ban or censor but from what I’ve found, it has not been used yet. Lily’s mother is killed during an accidental firing of a firearm and May dies by suicide, both of which may be triggering to a reader.
However, May’s death shows the importance of mental health, something truly ahead of the times The Secret Life of Bees was written in but this again can be viewed as “dipping your pen in someone else’s blood”. Sue Monk Kidd, author of The Secret Life of Bees, had no mental health issues, making her perspective on the matter not the most accurate.
Overall I find The Secret Life of Bees to simply be outdated. Although it’s not the worst novel to be taught in school, it is far from the best. It shouldn’t be taught in schools because there are so many more better alternatives now that appeal to what is socially acceptable today.
Check out these links I used if you're curious:
Let me know what you think, should this book be censored? Do you know any books that should be censored or have been wrongfully censored?
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