What are three passages in the book, you think, that are significant to The Secret Life of Bees?Help explain the story, important things/details...

While there are many significant passages in the novel, I
have chosen three that show a huge amount of growth and development in Lily’s character.

Lily searches for freedom. Just like the bees
trapped in the jar, Lily felt trapped living with T. Ray, until she realizes that she is
free to leave. Living at the peach farm, Lily is like the bees trapped in the jar, dying
slowly, unable to fly. But once she realizes she can leave, it is like she learned that
her jar was opened,

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“You could say I never had a true religious
moment, the kind where you know yourself spoken to by a voice that seems other than
yourself, spoken to so genuinely you see the words shining on trees and clouds. But I
had such a moment right then, standing in my own ordinary room. I heard a voice say,
Lily Owens, your jar is open. In a matter of seconds I knew exactly
what I had to do – leave” (41).

Lily struggles to
find her mother throughout the novel. She wants to know everything she can about the
woman she never knew, about her life, and what happened to her. Lily feels the lack of a
mother’s influence and it has left her broken in many ways, feeling unlovable. August
teaches her that she is not unlovable, and that the Mary of Chains has been a stand-in
mother for her. She tells Lily that Our Lady (Mary) is not a statue, she’s something
that is inside every person,

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“She’s something inside of
you…You have to find the mother inside yourself. We all do. Even if we already have a
mother, we still have to find this part of ourselves inside…You don’t have to put your
hand on Mary’s heart to get strength and consolation and rescue, and all the other
things we need to get through life…You can place it right here on your own heart.
Your own heart” (288). Lily learns that she has the power inside
herself to lead her own life and trust herself to make the right choices and have the
strength to survive.

Lily’s major
quest in this novel is the quest for love. She feels forsaken by T. Ray, who was
supposed to love her, but never did. She feels abandoned by her mother, who left her,
then came back, but died, condemning Lily to a life stuck with T. Ray. Lily finally
finds love and a place of belonging with the Boatwright sisters in the pink house. After
T. Ray comes to the pink house to collect Lily and after meeting opposition finally lets
her stay, Lily is finally freed from her past. She realizes the truth, that she is
loved,

“ I
watched until he was gone from sight, then turned and looked at August and Rosaleen and
the Daughters on the porch. This is the moment I remember clearest of all – how I stood
in the driveway looking back at them. I remember the sight of them standing there
waiting. All these women, all this love, waiting” (pg
299).