Black Motherhood in Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life of Bees

This thesis examines the concept of motherhood, especially black motherhood, in the America of the 20th century. The study is based on Sue Monk Kidd's novel The Secret Life of Bees (2002), the story of a motherless fourteen-year-old white girl called Lily Owens who grows up with the only presence of an abusive and racist father. While constantly feeling the lack of a maternal figure and decides to search for clues to unlock her mother's past, Lily succeeds, with the help of three black women who host her in their pink house, in becoming a self-actualized young lady. In order to study the issue of black motherhood in Kidd's novel with the necessary knowledge, a substantial part of the dissertation deals with the long struggle between black and white people in the America of the 20th century, particularly underlining the impressive trace of the great historian, socialist, civil rights activist and Pan-Africanist author W.E.B. DuBois, who dedicated his life to seeking equal treatment for African-Americans and to refuting the notion that black people were inferior. Through the active commitment of DuBois and the work of several political activists and scholars, the female sphere of the 20th Afro-American struggle against racism, going from black womanhood to black motherhood, is analyzed. Then the general view of the issue shifts to Kidd's novel where it is discussed more in details, focusing on the main characters, their role in the story and the message the author spreads through them. In addition to black motherhood, Kidd's novel raises another interesting and important issue, that is animal presence in literature. Unluckily, due to a lack of space, this matter is not studied here but there is a footnote about literature and animals in the introduction.