Comparison and Contrast Mother/Daughter Relationships in Popular Fiction

Mothers and daughters have always shared a deeper connection than any other members of the immediate family. Mothers have always been a source of love and guidance for their daughters, but have also been a source of grief and irritation sometimes. Two mothers, alive and one passed away, both guided and influenced their daughters during their lives. Vivi Walker in Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, and Deborah Owens in The Secret Life of Bees influenced and in some ways guided Sidda and Lily during their journeys to find themselves. Throughout irritation, estrangement, resentment, and finally resolution, Sidda and Lily's mothers indirectly guided them through their lives towards loving and accepting themselves in each novel.

The story of the Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood starts off by introducing Sidda lee Walker, the young producer of Broadway plays and daughter of Vivi Walker. She is a famous and incidentally causes a catastrophe as a reporter for The New York Times deliberately construes Sidda's response by including a reference to her mother as a "tap-dancing child abuser,"(Wells, 1). In no uncertain terms Sidda's mother, Vivi, disowns her own daughter as she exclaims over the phone to Sidda, "There is nothing you can say or do to make me forgive you. You are dead to me. You have killed me. Now I am killing you"(wells, 2). The rift between Sidda and Vivi begins and widens as "Sidda's searches for answers about herself and her relationship with her mother"(Kuilan). During the fight with her mother, Sidda is distraught and upset which causes her to reevaluate her ability to love. She wakes up in the middle of the night afraid that her fiance. Connor is not breathing and her anxiety overwhelms her enough to cancel the wedding plans. When Connor actually tries to find the root of the problem, Sidda instead denies it and suggests that she stay at a friends cabin in the woods. Really her exasperation over the anguish she has caused her mother begins to overtake her consciousness as she "felt a heavy black stone inside her chest blocking the radiance. Her limbs felt tense, as though she were keeping vigil" (Wells 9). Clearly having a tense relationship to begin with, Sidda and Vivi are greatly affected by one another and suffer equally when the other expresses disapproval.

During her time at the lodge, Sidda spends hours and hours in contemplation about her childhood and the memories keep flooding back. She remembers the times at the creek when her mother and the Ya-Yas would all lay out in the sun while the petites ya-yas would play in the water. Sidda's admiration for her mother is captured as she remembers the staged rescues they would act out at the creek as she says, "For days after mama saved you from a watery death, you would recall over and over again the thrill of a close call...You would wonder, What would happen if you were drowning and mama wasn't there to dive in and save you?...like the time you were little getting over bronchitis...You were bad and she hit you, then just went away"(Wells 36). Clearly Sidda's memories of the time her mother had a mental breakdown affect how she relates to her mother as well as how Sidda is afraid she will repeat the same abuse on her own children. With the news of the cancellation of Sidda's wedding plans, Vivi finally starts to write to Sidda encouraging her not to make this mistake and sends her the leather scrapbook containing everything ya-ya entitled Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood which chronicles the lives of Vivi, Teensy, Necie, and Caro as they grew to become the strong willed, vivacious best friends they are today. She begins to unfold the memories of her mother's past, and as she delves further into the heart of the ya-yas memorabilia she gets a glimpse of her mother as a young woman and "the impact of the past on the present becomes more apparent" (Kuilan). Understanding the difficulties Vivi was forced to face at such a young age allows Sidda to sympathize and accept her mother.

Then, near the end of the novel, the other three Ya-Ya's finally show up to fill in the blanks for Sidda about her mothers past. They each complete the memory of Vivi Walker and add color and detail to the fragments of information Sidda receives in the Divine Secrets scrapbook. As Sidda reads the letters the Ya-Yas have given her she is thrust back into the very worst memories of her childhood when her mother had a mental breakdown following an addiction to Dexamyl and tried to beat the devil out of her four young children. They recalled Vivi's incoherent states and how she seemed to just forget natural bodily functions like chewing. The Ya-Ya's and Shep all went to commit a delirious Vivi to a psychiatric clinic for three months. Since no one in the family had ever talked about it, Vivi's actions continued to fill Sidda with some feelings of guilt and anger. Then, as her fianc�, Connor, finally comes to visit, he convinces Sidda that she does not have to many problems for him to handle, and together they find the tiny elephant key which reminded Sidda of the time Lawanda the Magnificent came to town and Vivi went back after the show just to make sure Sidda had her chance to ride. She talked Sidda through a magical jungle journey, and changed the way Sidda thought about life that day. As the forty year old Sidda reflects upon this memory she thinks, "My mother and I are like elephants. In the stillness of night, out of sight, out of acoustic range, separated by barren dry savannas, my mother has been sending me messages. In my dry season, when I froze in the face of love, my mother did not abandon me. My mother is not a stage character to be fathomed from fragments, and I am not a scrawny, anxious child waiting for her perfect love. We are each flawed. and in search of solace...My mother is not the Holy Lady. My mothers' love is not perfect. My mother's love is good enough. My lover's love is good enough. Maybe I am good enough"(Wells, 327). She finally sees her mother for who she really was, a flawed and imperfect being, but the love she has for her mother, and the love her mother has for her finally complete the cycle for Sidda. She finally realizes that she is capable and deserving of a flawed, but good enough love. Her mother's guidance through the Divine Secrets and her fellow Ya-Ya's finally complete the picture of the reality of love in a flawed human existence for Sidda. She finally can relax without searching for perfection, and her acceptance of her mother allows her to forgive the past and finally find herself .

Like Sidda, Lily Owens has her own demons she must face throughout the story of her life. The Secret Life of Bees first introduces Lily as a motherless fourteen year old girl living on a peach farm in Sylvan, South Carolina with only her father and nanny, Rosaleen to claim as family. The memory of her mother seems to haunt Lily because she feels responsible for her death. Her abusive father T.Ray does nothing to quell her suspicions, and instead fuels them by saying it was Lily who bent down to pick up the gun during an argument that resulted in the accidental death of Deborah Owens. Lily is constantly haunted by the memory of her mother, and she hides a small box filled with the few things she has of her mothers out in the peach orchard. She takes so much care to hide these precious memories of her mother, and grieves over what she has become without a female figure in her life. She captures a bee in her room which has a hive behind the walls, and is comforted by it. The hive represents an all female community in which Lily unconsciously wishes she belonged to. The only mother figure she has to relate to is Rosaleen, so she accompanies her nanny to town in an effort to register to vote. On the way, Rosaleen and Lily are taunted by three racist white men who end up beating and sending Rosaleen to jail after she spits on their shoes. Later after T.Ray has come to extricate Lily from the jail, Lily hears the voice of her mother. As she recounts, "I had such a moment right then, standing in my own ordinary room. I heard a voice say Lily Melissa Owens your jar is open. In a matter of seconds I knew exactly what I had to do--leave. I had to get away from T.Ray...Not to mention I had to get Rosaleen out of jail."(Kidd ,41). Its almost as if the voice of Lily's mother spoke to her, and the picture of the black mother Mary spurs her journey onward out of the tiny racist town of Sylvan. She distracts the security guard with a phone call, and escapes with Rosaleen. After hitchhiking, they make it to the town named on the picture of the Black Mary where Lily walks into a general store and finds the picture of the Black Mary on Jars of honey. She asks the store clerk about it, and he gives her the address of August Boatwright, the maker of the Black Madonna Honey. It seems as though the picture left by her mother is guiding Lily back to August and her pink house which was the same place Lily's mother left to find solace and comfort from her life. Guided by the little remainders she has left of her mother, Lily finds August and is accepted into the group of sisters very naturally after Lily quickly says she ran away from home with Rosaleen, but fibs and says that her father is dead and that they ran away to keep from going to a home. August sets up their living quarters in the honey house, and soon Lily and Rosaleen are integrated into the life at the Bee farm. After a while Lily begins to think about her mother and says, "I pictured myself climbing in beside her and putting my head against her breast. I would put it right over hear beating heart and listen. Mama, I would say. And she would look down at me and say, Baby, I'm right here" (Kidd ,99). Even the memory of her mother begins to comfort and guide Lily to stay at the Bee farm until she knows more about her mother's stay there, and gives her a chance to become closer with Rosaleen and August, the women who are taking the role of mother in her life. Lily later goes with the women to their religious ceremony where she is introduced to Our Lady of Chains, and August tells the story of the statues history. It had belonged to a group of slaves that worshipped it, and when their master took it from them and chained it up, it would always astonishingly escape. The statue represents the guidance Lily's own mother gave her.

Even though her own mother is dead, it seems as though she is guiding Lily to this community of women that ban together to support her. As Lily is learning more about the bees in the hive and how they function to support the entire hive it is reflective upon the community of women she has entered that are giving that support and taking care of her as well. She has been adopted by these women and given the chance to thrive in this community. The guidance from her own mother is transferred to the statue of the black Mary as she thinks, "I live in a hive of darkness, and you are my mother. You are the mother of thousands" (Kidd, 164). One day Lily sees May putting graham crackers and marshmallows in a line toward the door which causes her to reflect on why she came to the Bee farm she says, "Ever since I'd set foot in the pink house, some part of me had kept believing that my mother had been here. No, not believing it so much as daydreaming it and running it through a maze of wishful thinking"(Kidd 173). So she becomes curious and asks May if her mother Deborah had ever stayed there, which May confirms for Lily but immediately follows with the song indicating she is upset.

Once again Lily's questioning about her mother is postponed when Zach gets arrested. The sisters try to keep the news from May because they know it will upset her, but May hears of the news through Zach's mother, and later kills herself by drowning in the stream. This further delays any information Lily can get about her mother, but also strengthens the bond she has for the women as they are reminded of how precious life is. Following the funeral there is a celebration of the Assumption of Mary which includes Lily and finally gives her a sense that she belongs in the pink house on the bee farm. She finally feels that it is time to talk to August and discuss her mother all the while waiting for her mother to send a sign of love. Lily discovers that August knew Deborah Owens was her mother all along, and August begins to tell Lily how she used to take care of her mother. Lily tells August the truth about how she ended up at her bee farm, and August holds and comforts her by saying, "Mostly, though, I want you to know, I love you. Just like I loved your mother" (Kidd, 243). They take a breather and finally Lily shows her the wooden picture of the black Mary that her mother kept and wrote the address of the farm on the back. August begins to tell Lily that her mother married T.Ray because she was pregnant with Lily, which fills Lily with guilt and hurt. Then Lily finally learns that everything T.Ray was saying had been right, and her mother had left her with T.Ray to stay with August on the bee farm. The feelings of being abandon overwhelm Lily and feelings of hate for her mother spring forth as she thinks, "I'd spent my life imagining all the ways she'd loved me, what a perfect specimen of a mother she was. And all of it was lies. I had completely made her up" (Kidd 252). August rushes to correct Lily's feelings of abandonment by telling her truthfully that her mother's return to the peach farm the day of her accident was to get Lily, and not just to pack her things, which fills Lily with emotion and guilt in remembrance of her part in her mothers death. She tells August about her memories of the day her mother died, and August comforters her by saying, "There is nothing perfect. There is only Life" (Kidd, 256). After August leaves, Lily cannot sleep and is filled with rage over her mother leaving her with T.Ray, and she begins to hurl jars of honey all around the room finally falling asleep curled next to the statue of the black Mary. Rosaleen wakes her up the next morning and lovingly helps her clean up the mess and bandages the cut on Lily's arm. The next day they continue to celebrate, and August finally shows Lily the box of things she kept which belonged to her mother. Lily is touched and thinks, "I knew then that no matter how hard you tried, no matter how many jars of honey you threw, no matter how much you thought you could leave your mother behind, she would never disappear from the tender places in you" (Kidd, 273). She finally realizes after viewing the picture of her and her mother that, "May must've made it to heaven and explained to my mother about the sign I wanted. The one that would let me know I was loved"(Kidd, 276). Lily struggles to forgive her mother, and while getting a new queen for a hive whose queen had died. August and Lily talk about the statue of Mary when August says, "You have to find a mother inside yourself. We all do. Even if we already have a mother, we still have to find this part of ourselves inside" which is telling Lily to be strong and look to herself for acceptance and love as well as those around her (Kidd, 288). Lily realizes all the things she was hoping to get from the memories of her mother must come from within herself. This strength allows her to stand up to T.Ray as he is pushing her around trying to take her with him back to Sylvan. August stands up for Lily and allows him to save face by saying how much it would help her if Lily stays with them, and T.Ray leaves, but before leaving he confirms for Lily that she did indeed cause the death of her mother. After that incident Lily becomes part of life at the bee farm. She keeps a picture of her mother that she says, "is perpetually smiling on me. I guess I have forgiven us both, although sometimes in the night my dreams will take me back to the sadness and I have to wake up and forgive us again." (Kidd, 302). She finally forgives her mother and relishes in all the women around her there to support her, but most of all she has found strength and love in herself. The picture her mother left behind at the peach farm served as guidance to the one place Lily's mother knew she would be well taken care of, and finally taught that love must come from within and that a mother never really abandons her daughter but lives on within her heart.

Both main characters in each novel struggled with the ideals they had of what a perfect mother was, and both characters were distraught when the flaws of their mothers were exposed. Sidda and Lily, however, were both surrounded with loving supportive friends that guided them back to understanding their mothers and their imperfect love. Both Sidda and Lily came to terms with the humanity in their mothers, and both accepted the life they were given by their mothers which allowed them to feel whole and loved without some unrealistic idea of perfection, but with the ability to give love once again.

Sources:
Wells, Rebecca. Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. New York, NY: HarperCollins,

1996.

Kidd, Sue M. The Secret Life of Bees. New York, NY: Penguin Group, 2002.

"Rebecca Wells." Contemporary Authors Online. Infotrac. J.D.Williams Library, Oxford.

28 Nov. 2006.

Kuilan, Susie S. "Rebecca Wells." Dictionary of Literary Biography (2004). Gale

Database. 28 Nov. 2006.