Literary Analysis

To write a good story, not only ideas take place. You need to use literary devices in order to provide a good story. The best mentor to look up is Sue Monk Kidd. She used a lot of literary devices in her story which is called The Secret Life of Bees. The three main literary devices which she used throughout her story are: epigraphs, character development and allusions.

“Heat would make a person do strange things.”(112).Specially we see this when is described Lily’s hard life without the main person of her, without her mother. Since her mother died she is an orphan and her father doesn’t care for her even though she has her nanny that loves her. Not only she needs her mother to care for her or love her, but also she needs her in daily life to help her going through her childhood and teenage problems that every single person goes through. The most common literary device which you will see, while you read the book are epigraphs. This is shown in the beginning of every chapter, giving the readers many hints and some sort of warning of what might be happening in the story. This is an optional device which you choose to use. But it put epigraphs to give you clues on what she will talk next. This is one example: “A worker [bee] is just over a centimeter long and weighs only about sixty milligrams; nevertheless, she can fly with a load heavier than herself.” –The Honey Bee (257) The Secret Life of Bees.

This foreshadows you that the main character who is Lily, a 14-year-old girl, is carried too much responsibility on her shoulders, about what she’s going through. Other device that develops ones story, being the most important device in my opinion, is the character development. It pictures the things that the character goes through and how they change throughout the story, most of the characters change a lot during the whole book .Character development explains every detail, until the final touch that that character goes through. We see the main character Lily develops so much through this story. In the beginning we see her as an innocent girl, which she does everything to find out more about her mother. Last but not least…allusions. Why is it important to put them in your story? Allusions as you know, is the reference of something that has happened in history,that everybody knows about.

If you put them in your story, you make your story real. You make the readers feel it, actually live it. Sue Monk Kidd uses allusions to help you understand what is going on in more details. That’s what you should do. Some of the allusions which are very important to be named is where the author put in THE CIVIL RIGHTS ACT. This automatically touches your brain by telling you that this was in the 60’s and that the colored people where fighting to win their rights. Also adding, it brings you that feeling that you think you’re living in the story, being able to relate in anyone’s everyday life. Another allusion is the WAILING WALL which May writes on it every time somebody dies. In conclusion to this, Allusions help the story by allowing the audience to relate and apply these reasoning’s in their lives.

Briefly explained, the three literary devices which would be good to include in stories are: epigraphs, character development and allusions. This brings your story to a point that the reader believes they are actually living the story, feeling every single detail of it. So, all in all, literary devices increase more use of detailed writing and allows people to understand what is going on.