The Secret Life of Bees: Characterization Summative Assessment

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Teacher: Class, period: Date: The Secret Life of Bees : Characterization Summative Assessment Directions: The following test is designed to provide you with an opportunity to show what you have learned about the element of characterization. You will discuss how the characters Lilly, Rosaleen, August, and June are all characterized in the novel The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. From the quote bank provided for each character, choose two quotes to focus on. Then provide at least THREE sentences analyzing how the line characterizes the person. You may choose two separate descriptor words of how they are characterized. Be sure to develop your analysis appropriately providing as much depth as possible in your discussion. Write small.

How characters are characterized: 1. Details given regarding their physical description 2. Direct narration of how the person

is characterized

3. What the character says (or thinks) 4. What others say about the character 5. How the character acts 6. Reactions of others to the character

Lily Quote Bank

Ch 1 Ch 1 “At night I would lie in bed and watch the show, how bees squeezed “Every one of those bees could have descended on me like a flock of through the cracks of my bedroom wall… I watched their wings shining angels and stung me till I died, and it wouldn’t have been the worst like bits of chrome in the dark and felt the longing build in my chest. thing to happen. People who think dying is the worst thing don’t The way those bees flew, not even looking for a flower, just flying for know a thing about life” (2). the feel of the wind, split my heart down its seam” (1).

Ch 1 Ch 1 “There was nothing I hated worse than clumps of whispering girls who “What kind of person was against reading ? I think he [T-Ray] believed got quiet when I passed…I worried so much about how I looked and it would stir up ideas of college, which he thought was a waste of whether I was doing things right, I felt half of the time I was money for girls, even if they did, like me, score the highest number of impersonating a girl instead of really being one” (9). human being can get on their verbal aptitude test” (15).

Ch 2 Ch 2 “I looked across the water for Rosaleen. She was gone… I felt the same “‘You [T-Ray] don’t scare me,’ I repeated, louder this time. A brazen old grief I’d known in church every single Mother’s Day. Mother feeling had broken loose in me, a daring something that had been forgive ” (54). locked up in my chest” (38).

Ch 8 “Then, without warning…I felt the hollow, spooned out space between Ch 12 “Probably one or two moments in your whole life, you will hear a dark my navel and breastbone begin to ache. The motherless place. I could see whispering spirit, a voice coming from the center of things. It will have my mother… I heard the explosion… How could I live the whole rest of my blades for lips and will not stop until it speaks the one secret thing at the life knowing these things? What could I ever do that would be good enough heart of it all. Kneeling on the floor, unable to stop shuddering, I heard it to make them go away? How come we couldn’t go back and fix the bad we plainly. It said, You are unlovable, Lily Owens. Unlovable. Who could love did?” ( 151). you? Who in this world could ever love you ?” (242).

Ch 13 Ch 14 “Drifting off to sleep, I thought about her [Lily’s mother Deborah]. “In the photograph by my bed my mother is perpetually smiling on How nobody was perfect. How you just have to close your eyes and me. I guess I have forgiven us both… I sit in my new room and write breathe out and let the puzzle of the human heart be what it is” (285). everything down. My heart never stops talking. I am the wall keeper now. I keep it fed with prayers and fresh rocks” (301-302).

Lily Descriptor WORD of how QUOTE from the quote bank that ANALYSIS that discusses how the quote supports how she is she is characterized supports the descriptor characterized. Provide at least THREE sentences of developed discussion.

Descriptor is accurate and Quote selected appropriately matches the effective in discussing how descriptor listed of how character is Analysis is insightful and well developed. Clearly connects how the quote supports character is characterized. characterized the characterization descriptor. 1/0 1/0 3/2/1/0

Rosaleen Quote Bank

Ch 1 Ch 1 “She [Rosaleen] looked down at my knees and stopped sweeping. “Rosaleen lifted her snuff jug, which was filled with black spit, and They were swollen with a hundred red welts, pinprick bruises that calmly poured it across the tops of the men’s shoes…” (32). would grow into blue stubble across my skin. ‘Look at you, child. Look what he’s done to you,’ she said” (25).

Ch 1 Ch 1 “She’d thrown her husband out three years after they married, for carousing. “I was the only one who knew that despite her sharp ways, her heart ‘You put his brain in a bird, the bird would fly backward,’ she liked to say.” (12). was more tender than a flower skin and she loved me beyond reason” Ch 6 “‘She [June] was supposed to get married… But he didn’t show up for the (11). wedding.’ …I heard Rosaleen make a sound like Hmmmph, and I knew she was thinking about her own sorry husband, wishing he hadn’t shown up for their ceremony” (103).

Ch 2 “When she [Rosaleen] saw me standing there, she started to cry. In all Ch 4 “Rosaleen glided along, gathering rain in the pan and flinging it out like a the years she looked after me, I’d never seen a tear cross her face. Now the child would do. She walked on puddles like they were Persian carpet, and when a levee broke wide open… ‘They hit you again?’ ‘Two of them held me by the clap of thunder boomed around us, she looked up at the drowned sky, opened her arms while the other hit me – the one with the flash light. He said “Nigger, mouth, and let the rain fall in. Ever since those men had beaten her, her face had you say you’re sorry.” …He hit me till the policeman said that was enough. been so pinched and tired, her eyes dull like they’d had the light knocked out of They didn’t get no apology, though’” (46). them. Now I could see her returning to herself, looking like an all weather queen out there, like nothing could touch her” (75).

Ch 4 Ch 10 “I sipped. Rosaleen, however, downed hers so fast she let out a belch “She [Rosaleen] cut her eyes at me as if to say, See? You aren’t the that the boys in my old junior high would have envied. It was only one who can concoct lies at the drop of a hat ” (198). unbelievable” (73).

Ch 13 Ch 13 “‘I wish you’d [Rosaleen] told me what you knew about my mother,’ I “I pictured her [Rosaleen] standing in a line of people. I could almost said. ‘How come you didn’t?’ ‘Oh Lily,’ She said, and there was see her practicing writing her name. Getting it just right. Her big gentleness in her words, like they’d been rocked in a little hammock of moment. ...I wanted to see her face when they handed her her card. I tenderness down her throat. ‘Why would I go and hurt you with wanted to say , Rosaleen, you know what? I’m proud of you ” (282). something like that?’” (265).

Rosaleen Descriptor WORD of how QUOTE from the quote bank that ANALYSIS that discusses how the quote supports how she is she is characterized supports the descriptor characterized. Provide at least THREE sentences of developed discussion.

August Quote Bank

Ch 6 Ch 8 “Stories have to be told or they die, and when they die, we can’t “‘I [August] decided against marrying altogether. There were enough remember who we are or why they are here” (107). restrictions in my life without someone expecting me to wait on him hand and foot. Not that I’m against marrying, Lily. I’m just against how it is set up’” (145).

Ch 9 Ch 12 “Looking in her [August’s] eyes, I could see a fire inside them. It was a “There is nothing perfect,’ August said from the doorway. ‘There is hearth fire you could depend on, you could draw up to and get warm only life” (256). by if you were cold, or cook something on that would feed the emptiness inside you. I felt like we were all adrift in the world, and all we had was the wet fire in August’s eyes. But it was enough” (184).

Ch 4 Ch 5 “All I [Lily] could think was, August is so intelligent, so cultured ” (78). “‘But they’re [Lily and Rosaleen] in some kind of trouble and need a place to stay. Who’s gonna take care of them if we [The Calendar Sisters] don’t- a white girl and a Negro woman? Nobody around here’” (86).

Ch 7 Ch 8 “August walked over and sat down in her desk chair. ‘Lily, you can talk “‘The whole problem with people is… they know what matters, but to me. You know that, don’t you?’ When I didn’t answer, she caught they don’t choose it. You know how hard that is Lily? I love May, but it my hand and drew me to her, pulling me right into her lap” (122). was still so hard to choose Caribbean Pink. The hardest thing on earth is choosing what matters’” (147).

Ch 12 Ch 14 “I gave a sideways glance at August. I forced my mind back to that moment in her bedroom when I’d confessed the worst of human “She [August] said, ‘Regrets don’t help anything’” (280). things. Upon hearing it she’d said, I love you. Just like I loved your mother ” (245).

August Descriptor WORD of how QUOTE from the quote bank that ANALYSIS that discusses how the quote supports how she is she is characterized supports the descriptor characterized. Provide at least THREE sentences of developed discussion.

June Quote Bank

Ch 5 Ch 6 “…June smiled so little…I could tell she was still bristled at the idea of “‘June swore off men and said she would never get married, and then me and Rosaleen staying; it was the one sore point of our being there” she met Neil…He has tried every which way to get June to marry him, (86). but she wont do it. Me and August can’t convince her either’” (103).

Ch 6 Ch 6 June’s eyes turned dull and hard when she looked at me” (105). “I walked toward the black Mary with my hand lifted…June stopped playing. She stopped right in the middle of the song, and I was left in silence with my hand stretched out... Drawing it back, I looked around me… I am not one of you I thought… I heard August scolding, ‘June, what got into you?’”(111).

Ch 7 Ch 9 “‘Why can’t you just let it be?’ yelled June. ‘Why does it always come “I saw the softening come around June’s eyes, how she was trying not to back to this? Get this through your head: I’m not getting married. Not laugh…the minute she softened her eyes, the whole thing collapsed. I could yesterday, not today, not next year!’ ‘What are you scared of?’ Neil almost see her smack her forehead, thinking, I am wrestling with a fourteen year old girl over a garden sprinkler. This is ridiculous. She let go and said” (132). sprawled back on the grass in convulsions of laughter “(169).

Ch 10 Ch 10 “‘You’ve [June] been halfway living your life for too long… Ever since “I watched June, how she seemed quieter since August had lowered Melvin Edwards backed out of your wedding all those years back, the boom on her about Neil. Not exactly sulking. Contemplating is you’ve been afraid of love, refusing to take a chance’” (211). more like it…you could tell she was…trying to find her own answers to things” (212).

Ch 11 Ch 11 “The only time I saw June was when Neil came over…She would come “June stared at Neil, and I could see the struggle on her face. The out wearing hoop earring and off they’d go, taking long rides in his surrender she had to make inside. Not just to Neil but to life. Finally car, which she said, did her a world of good. The wind rearranged her she let out a long, sighing breath. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘Let’s get thoughts, and the countryside made her see all the life still out there married’” (222). waiting to be lived” (216).

June Descriptor WORD of how QUOTE from the quote bank that ANALYSIS that discusses how the quote supports how she is she is characterized supports the descriptor characterized. Provide at least THREE sentences of developed discussion.