The Secret Life of Bees and the Problems of Race

I have to say that since embarking on this project I am trying to be a bit more selective in the things I read, not all the time, but looking at lists of the best books is making me a little more discerning, at least when I go to the library. This book came up on the additional bucket list of books by women writers (on Bookriot) and I saw it at the library so I thought I’d give it a go. 

Like many of the books on the list this is not particularly literary, although I would have to say I thought it was nicely written with some good imagery. I particularly loved the scenes of the religious ceremonies of the Daughters of Mary complete with their fantastic hats.  The main narrator (Lily) had an appealing narrative voice and I liked the characters, particularly the three sisters. 

It is the kind of book I would like to give to a girl of about the same age as Lily as I think it’s easy to read and contains some rather well-put homespun wisdom about themes such as forgiveness, the role of the mother and about becoming a woman. The overall message is one of hope and the ability to reconcile yourself with past mistakes.

Reading the reviews I see that although the majority of reviews were positive, criticism was levelled at the author for her portrayal of T. Ray as being wholly negative, for the black characters being stereotypes and for the ending. For the first point, I would argue that the portrayal of T. Ray is not that important, for the first place he is portrayed that way because we are viewing him through Lily’s eyes, by the end she is starting to understand that he behaves that way towards her because he is punishing her for her mother leaving him (and probably for her role in killing her mother) and that actually, by removing himself from her life rather than forcing her to return home with him he is somehow showing some sort of care for her, however, as a fourteen year old girl she is probably not going to give a balanced account of the man who is abusing her, particularly as she practically hero-worships her mother.  In the second place, he is acting as a catalyst to the plot, perhaps he is a one-dimensional catalyst, but the book wouldn’t work without her deciding both to leave her home and to stay away from it, and this also ties in with the ending in that there is no tearful reunion with her father, but at the same time he doesn’t drag her away from the sisters or Rosaleen, Lily is where she feels she belongs with people who care about her. 

I found the question of whether she used stereotypes more difficult to answer. I am aware that I don’t read nearly enough writing by PoCs and I am only starting to analyse media portrayals of ethnic minorities and disabled people. I did a lit theory course on post colonialism, but it wasn’t that in depth. I could do with educating. 

I read an interesting article on Challenging the Stereotypes in Kids Books (by Mitali Perkins). She asked the following questions:

Are the non white characters too good to be true?

The author of this article cites The Secret Life of Bees as an example of a book where the author is overcompensating by portraying characters as ‘a wise elder dispensing advice’ that assists a white character to attain spiritual and moral enlightenment.

How and why does the author define race?

SMK has chosen to set this book in the 1960s during a time of racial tension which has an impact on several of the characters of the book.  The incident of Rosaleen getting attacked moves the story forward, forcing Lily to leave home, although this would have worked equally if Lily had had some other incident that made her leave, albeit she would probably not have gone with Rosaleen, whose role within the book seems to be more as acting as some sort of conscious to Lily rather than being an interesting character in her own right – she does not really have her own plot as such, although she becomes friends with May this is never really explored in any detail and May very quickly commits suicide.  SMK does manage to explore the issue of Lily’s unconscious racism, her belief that no black woman could ever be as intelligent as she is, her embarrassment at what she perceives to be Rosaleen’s bad manners and her shame at laughing at jokes about black people.  Black people are ‘the other’, something she has obviously been encouraged to believe and she is surprised when June doesn’t immediately want to admit her into the Daughters of Mary.

Another criticism of the book is that SMK has chosen to give the women ‘white voices’ rather than using dialect. I think that this would be the hardest part of writing authentic black characters, the ability to make them sound authentic rather than as stereotypical southern black characters. Arguably, this could be down to using Lily as a narrator or portraying the women (aside from May and Rosaleen, who speaks in more of a vernacular) as college educated. As pointed out in A Critical Study of Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees (Joy A. Herbert, 14^th July 2007, Georgia State University Digital Archive), this does not explain the Standard American English dialect spoken by the Daughters.  

Is the cover art true to the story?

Whereas the film poster is covered in pictures of the sisters and Rosaleen (as well as Lily), the covers of pretty much ALL the editions of this book (aside from the film tie in) have pictures of bees on there, pictures of Lily or pictures of a pot of honey with the black Mary on it. No illustrations of the sisters.

Who are the change agents?

Lily tries to change her own life by leaving home. Rosaleen gets attacked and arrested on the way to register to vote, leading Lily to leave home, the implication being that Lily has to ‘rescue’ Rosaleen from jail, incurring the housekeeper’s wrath. Zach is determined to become a lawyer by going to ‘white school’ but he is mainly helped and encouraged in this endeavour by Clayton, the ‘good’ male character. The sisters are the agents for change in Lily’s life, but it is more the circumstances of Zach’s arrest that cause June to get married and the death of May.  The worrying thing is the implication that because the sisters have chosen to stay single and not to have children, that somehow Lily has become the child that they were unable to have, something that has disturbing implications for both a post-colonial perspective (the use of the ‘mammy’ stereotype of the motherly black woman existing to bring up other people’s children) and from a feminist perspective (that a single, childless woman is somehow suffering from a kind of void that needs to be filled). As the book is narrated by Lily, SMK can show that from Lily’s perspective, the women are acting as her mother, there is no way of properly exploring if this is reciprocated or how the women feel about adopting her.  

How is beauty defined?

Rosaleen fits the ‘mammy’ stereotype very well in her physical appearance; the three sisters have a brief description of their physical traits but nothing about whether Lily thinks they are beautiful. Lauren Grobman in her article Teaching Cross-Racial Texts: Cultural Theft in The Secret Life of Bees (College English 2008), has remarked on the sexlessness of the woman, how August is ‘completely uninterested in sex and sexuality’ but her ‘feminist awareness [of marriage denying women freedom] is tainted by her complete devotion to caring for others and by the erasure of her own emotional and physical needs’.  I would be inclined to agree, even June’s relationship with Neil is bypassed, all the characters seem to do with one another is argue.  

Zach is attractive to her because he doesn’t look like what she considers a typical African-American. The only things that we know about the way that he looks, however, is that he is handsome, has a one-sided dimple, a good body and short hair, there is no proper description of his features.  

   

Conclusion

She tried and it’s good that she did, particularly with showing Lily trying to change her misconceptions and prejudices; however, there are elements that could be considered problematic within the novel. Interestingly, Grobman points out that quotes on the cover and inside the book are firstly by white women authors and secondly focus on her powers as a storyteller or narrative voice rather than using terms like ‘black’ or ‘African American’.  In her article, she argues that we should ‘give Kidd the benefit of the doubt’. Final conclusion – I read it, I enjoyed it, but it’s not a book to borrow racial attitudes from.

Cosette and the Thernadiers

As I did previously with Fantine, I have had a look at the way these characters are portrayed on the stage and in films. This time I have also watched the first part of the 25^th Anniversary production, so there will probably be references to that in here as well, and the character portrayal within the book. 

It seems that the Thernadiers are generally treated as comic characters on the stage, often complete with rotten teeth and pantomime make-up, and in the case of the Anniversary production, played by a famous comedian. The song ‘Master of the House’ is a jolly upbeat number about stiffing unsuspecting guests which contrasts with Cosette’s song. This kind of moment within the musical makes it highly entertaining and accessible to children.

Within the book, however, the characters are more sinister.  It is noticable that there is a sense of some of the characters almost being ‘spied on’; sometimes this is obvious, as in the case of Thernadier and friend spying on the mysterious figure burying something in the wood, or the woman going to see Cosette to ‘reassure’ people that Fantine is an unwed mother, sometimes it is more anonymous, as when somebody apparently witnesses Valjean hesitating before going to book a carriage for the journey to Champmathieau’s trial. It is clear from the beginning of the story that the Thernadiers are out for what they can get; Thernadier is a prime example of the kind of man who would try to observe somebody doing something wrong in order to gain from it in some way. Perhaps this is an element of the society that Hugo is trying to portray after the first part of the revolution – people are still suspicious of one another, the poor are treated abominably and unless the characters are as saintly as the Bishop, they can be as greedy or self-serving as the Thernadiers.

In some way the Thernadiers try to appear better than they really are. Madame Thernadier takes the example of trashy romantic novels to behave in a fawning way to her husband who has literary pretentions and talks of the materialist philosophy and of philosophers he probably knows little about (probably indicating that he is an atheist). Madame Thernadier dresses Cosette in rags, but ensures that her two daughters are well-dressed with plenty of toys and have money in their clogs at Christmas. Although they are in debt, their standard of living is related to their status as business owners who have profited from Waterloo.

Madame Thernadier is described as somewhat grotesque; enormous, almost like a circus performer with a beard, only one tooth and an enormous appetite for drink, swearing and violence.  Thernadier himself is small, skinny and weasely in his attitude to his guests.  ‘...He was thoroughly crooked, a sanctimonious knave.’ (Penguin 1976, translated by Denny. P341). He has no nationality, seems to change his political views and pretends to be a war hero and a man of learning. Yet he is ‘terrible’ (p343) when he becomes angry, and there is a sense that he is not a man to be laughed at or crossed if one can help it. He has complete control over the business and his family.

At this time working children were all too common, so nobody in the inn seems to be that bothered about Cosette working as the Thernadier’s servant, indeed, the couple talk about her as if they did Fantine a great favour taking Cosette in when it is obvious that they have had a great deal of work out of her. 

This was also the period when attitudes about the importance of universal education and about the nature of childhood itself were changing, so it will be interesting to see if any of this will be reflected in the novel. The portrayal of children within novels of the period reflects this in that 19^th century novels feature more children and there are more books written specifically for children. In the United Kingdom and France concepts of cruelty to children did not really exist until the 1880s.

Many children in 19^th Century novels seem to fall into three categories, either the saintly sentimentalised good children like Dickens’s Florence Dombey or Helen Burns in Jane Eyre or the wild, bad children such as Heathcliffe and Cathy or the spoilt children such as Mary Lennox in a Secret Garden.  Cosette herself appears sentimentalised, resembling Oliver Twist (published 1839, Les Mis was published in 1862 but this part is set around 15 years before OT)  in that despite her mistreatment, she is basically a good child who tells lies to escape punishment from the monstrous Madame Thernadier (Thernadier himself doesn’t seem to have that much to do with her until he sees an opportunity to make some money from her) and who has never been taught to pray (p357), or even entered a church (p360). 

 

Hugo emphasises her tininess, her terror and her misery with the incident where she goes out on Christmas Eve to get water. She is plain because she is miserable and behaves as if she is constantly afraid. Hugo contrasts her and her treatment with the Thernadier’s daughters who are pretty, well-dressed spoilt little madams who are fondly indulged by their mother and for whom Cosette knits stockings, also their sleeping arrangements of Cosette sleeping in a junk room, on a straw mattress, fully dressed with the little girls in twin beds with white covers. 

Hugo uses them as ‘an embodiment of society – envy on one side, indifference on the other.’ (362). Both Cosette and Fantine act as emotive figures in the novel in that they have they little control over their own fates. Yet she is also shown to be brave in that she doesn’t cry until Madame Thernadier flies into a monstrous rage after she’s caught playing with a doll (which is apparently an essential human right for girls according to Hugo), in the same way that Fantine attempts to defend herself when she is accused of assaulting a man. Valjean is different in that he seems to always be able to prevent himself from being completely powerless, usually through an act of fate or goodness (such as saving a man which then prevents people from checking his papers to discover that he is a convict).

In this case Valjean draws attention to himself by buying the doll for Cosette and causes the Thernadiers to begin to feel venom and hatred towards him. Thernadier is suspicious enough to stay up most of the night observing him and although Madame Thernadier is anxious to be rid of her, he gets Valjean to pay for her and tries to pursue them to get even more money. Valjean is making enemies as he goes, he has already made an enemy of Javert and here he has made enemies of the Thernadier family. There is also the rental agent of the house he and Cosette is staying at spying on him and suspicious of the money that he has hidden in his coat. It is clear that the pair of them are unlikely to remain safe in their assumed identities. 

25th Anniversary Concert (Well, the First Bit)

Although I wasn’t aiming to watch any of this until I finished the book, I capitulated over the weekend and watched the first part up to the point where I am in the book, then watched a background documentary on the film. Here are some of my thoughts:

• All comments about acting are with the caveats that this is the first time I’ve seen it, I am aware that the musical moves at an incredibly fast pace with a number of staging issues to consider such as the size of the O2. Gestures that may seem too extreme for a film version would be necessary in such a large space. There are going to be things that have to be changed or left out from the book. I was surprised at the staging, I suppose I expected it to be more like a traditional play type musical with backdrops and props, but it worked very well the way that it was done with the stage in two ‘layers’ and the large screens above.  I imagine it is exhausting for the actors.

• Valjean and Cosette were excellent. Alfie can really act; his facial expressions were a wonder to behold, he could convey emotion with the merest twitch. I was afraid Cosette would be way too ‘drama school’ but she had such a sweet pitiful expression when she sang.

• I liked the casting of a PoC to play Javert, I thought it made a statement about the character and his status within the society that is still relevant today. I thought Norm was a bit wooden during Cosette’s arrest, but he was suitably emotional when he realised who Madeleine was and I loved the duet with Valjean.

• I was not that much of a fan of Lea Solanga as Fantine, I found the obvious singer ‘I am annunciating this very carefully’ mouth movements distracting. I wasn’t that affected by her performance of ‘I Dreamed a Dream’, I thought the interpretation was a bit off. Comparing this with Anne Hathaway looking all pathetic and singing it like she was truly broken-hearted, well, clips of Anne make me want to cry whereas Lea made me go ‘meh’. Not that keen on her voice either.  Having now seen the way that the musical is staged, the pictures of lady Fantine/dollymop Fantine make a bit more sense, here Lea had a pretty white dress with two patches on it, then she changed into her shroud-like death dress after Valjean and Javert had their confrontation.  The transformation from grisette to prostitute was accomplished during the one song, there was no time for her to change and even though part of the song was her selling her hair she didn’t actually lose it. There was a brief moment where she seemed to go off stage during ‘Lovely Girls’ which would give the dollymop school time to stick a mob cap and some slap on her if they were so inclined, otherwise they would have to have her dressed as a prostitute the whole way through.

• The Thernadiers were amusing and larger than life; I particularly liked Madame Thernadier’s nasty sarcastic edge.  I saw a picture of Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen as the Thernadiers today; I have to say they looked quite sinister in comparison, although I don’t think Helena plays anything else much anymore. Long gone are the days of seeing her in a long white dress playing a Merchant Ivory heroine, now it’s all creepy evil people and Miss Havisham (who I can’t really take as evil probably since reading Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next novels).

The film looks amazing. I’d seen the trailer before but this was a documentary on the way that it has been filmed in a completely different way to other musicals and it looks like it’s going to be great.  I’m looking forward to seeing it and to seeing the rest of the 25^th Anniversary Concert.  

Back to the Plot

Valjean has been re-captured and the subject of two newspaper reports, one reporting truthfully about his re-arrest and the missing money, the other a sensationalised completely biased account of a cunning rogue who conned people so that he could become mayor and live with his concubine and it is lucky that due to the ‘indefatigable zeal’ (Penguin 1976, translated by Denny, p325) of the police that he was re-captured, sentenced to death but had his sentenced commuted to hard labour for life.  As far as the tabloid press are concerned, it looks like nothing changes. 

It also gives us a glimpse into the way the press (or at least a certain type of press) view the King. Although it doesn’t really interfere with the plot so far (except the giant Waterloo rant), Hugo frequently reminds the reader about the backdrop that these events are taking place against, so here we have the insinuation that the King is merciful to someone who doesn’t necessarily deserve it.  Later on there is a description of the broken down ship Orion, something that is seemingly unconnected to the story and which Hugo uses to point out the expense of military action particularly when used in the Franco-Spanish War for the French King to restore the Spanish King. Although France won, Hugo sees it as being an affront to liberty and democracy and the origin of the events of 1830 as he reads it as a sign that Louis XVIII believed that if could restore the Spanish monarchy he could also re-establish the divine right of Kings in France. 

"Prince Charles has an outrageous amount of influence. For me, [the future] Charles III, although he will probably rule as George VII, is most like Edward VIII. He believes in his right to interfere. The idea that a constitutional monarchy has interference rights seems to me a scandal." Mark Gatiss in an interview with Mark Lawson, Guardian 21st October 2012.

As the scandal of Prince Charles's letters has shown, this is something that societies with any sort of monarchy, even a constitutional one can be concerned about.

The narrative perspective is these parts of the book is interesting. We are not directly told that any of this is about Valjean or what his feelings are about any of the events. Firstly, Hugo narrates an apparently unconnected superstition linking it to Boulatruelle and Thernadier observing a stranger burying something which they cannot find. At least we know where Valjean’s stash has come from when he shows up at the Thernadier Inn (can’t remember the name, just that it was something to do with Waterloo after Mr. Thernad passed himself off as a brave soldier). Then we have the story of a convict bravely trying to save a seaman but apparently drowning in the process. Only by the end of the chapter do we know that the ‘drowned’ man was Valjean.  

The next chapter opens with the Thernadier’s Tavern and poor Cosette. Most of this chapter is narrated from the perspective of the greedy Thernadier’s and Cosette, who meets a stranger in yellow when she is sent out in the dark on Christmas Eve to fetch a huge bucket of water. Instead of seeing things from Valjean’s perspective here, we see the greed, cruelty and all-round unpleasantness of the Thernadiers, and how they view Valjean and are unable to decide whether to be deferential or unfriendly towards him. I thought about why Hugo chose to narrate the story in this way, I think that adding Valjean’s voice in as well would have made this chapter rather too confusing. It makes the Thernadiers look even worse as we see all their scheming, plotting and abuse of Cosette, without making the chapter too maudlin by adding Valjean’s voice (although admittedly Hugo does his best to tug at our heartstrings). Cosette’s perspective is very important to the chapter as well, how she thinks of herself and how she views this mysterious stranger whom she instinctively trusts yet fears his gift of the beautiful doll. It also gives the next chapter more power by focusing on Valjean’s re-birth outside the Tavern. It is quite an exciting chapter with the reader not knowing if Valjean will escape with Cosette.

The next book focuses on Valjean and Cosette’s new life in the Gorbeau tenement and Valjean’s re-birth as a man who is able to love (after his first re-birth where the Bishop taught him re-birth).  Again Hugo touches on the theme of destiny, in this case Valjean’s belief that it is his destiny to take care of Cosette and teach her to read. Hugo really tugs at the reader's heartstrings here with the portrait of Valjean taking care of Cosette and Cosette calling him father and seeing their meagre lodgings as some sort of palace. Yet, there is an undercurrent of Valjean drawing unwelcome attention to himself despite his best efforts, and I am sure that it is not the last we're going to see of the Thernadiers.