How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
That night I lay in bed and thought about dying and going to be with my mother in paradise. I would meet her saying, 'Mother, forgive. Please forgive,' and she would kiss my skin till it grew chapped and tell me I was not to blame. She would tell me this for the first ten thousand years (1.8).
We learn pretty quickly that Lily has some serious mama issues. She suffers from a lot of guilt regarding her role in her mom's death, and she seems to feel the void it created pretty acutely a decade later.
Quote #2
Then I turned around and looked back toward the door where I'd come in. Over in the corner was a carving of a woman nearly three feet tall. She was one of those figures that had leaned out from the front of a ship in olden times, so old she could have been on the Santa Maria with Columbus, for all I knew.
She was black as she could be, twisted like driftwood from being out in the weather, her face a map of all the storms and journeys she'd been through. Her right arm was raised, as if she was pointing the way, except her fingers were closed in a fist. It gave her a serious look, like she could straighten you out if necessary (4.29-30)
When Lily shows up at the Boatwrights, one of the first things she sees is this statue. She soon learns that this statue has a whole backstory and lore attached to it. It is the figurehead off an old ship that the slaves who discovered it deemed a representation of the Virgin Mary. Through her symbolic power, this "Mary" became a source of strength and resourcefulness to the slaves, and so the statue remains incredibly meaningful to August's family (who inherited her somehow). She was also the inspiration for the Mary who appears on August's honey jars.
Quote #3
If this was a man's world, a veil took the rough beard right off. Everything appeared softer, nicer. When I walked behind August in my bee veil, I felt like a moon floating behind a night cloud (5.73).
Bees and the moon are powerful symbols of femininity and maternity in the book, and this passage combines them both. As you can see, the veils involved in bee keeping help smooth out the edges of a "man's world."
Quote #4
Turned on its side, the brick announced a happy bee family, no Ozzie, just Harriet and her ten thousand daughters (5.80).
Here, Lily is checking the hives with August (Zach has left bricks on each of the hives to indicate ones that need additional care/tending). She marvels at the family structure that bees maintain, which includes a mother (the queen, aka "Harriet") and her "ten thousand daughters." Given that Lily has become part of her own female-only family, it's no wonder she finds this significant . . .
Quote #5
'Everyone knew the mother of Jesus was named Mary, and that she'd seen suffering of every kind. That she was strong and constant and had a mother's heart. And here she was, sent to them on the same waters that had brought them here in chains. It seemed to them she knew everything they suffered' (6.73)
This is August telling the story of Our Lady of Chains. As she explains, this statue became a kind of maternal/religious symbol to the slaves who found it, inspiring them to find reserves of strength/resolve in themselves that helped them consider escape. Hearing about her powers, the master eventually took Our Lady and chained her up in the barn—but, as legend has it, she escaped and returned to the slaves' prayer house. The master and Our Lady apparently went through that same ritual 50 times until the master finally left her alone.
Quote #6
' . . . Big Mama kept bees, too, right out there in the same spot they're in today. Nobody around here had ever seen a lady beekeeper till her. She liked to tell everybody that women made the best beekeepers, 'cause they have a special ability built into them to love creatures that sting. 'It comes from years of loving children and husbands,' she'd say' (8.40).
Whereas beekeeping had traditionally been thought of as a profession for men, Big Mama believed that women were, in fact, more naturally suited for it. As we have already noted, the book frequently uses bees or bee imagery to suggest the power of mostly or entirely female groups.
Quote #7
'Egg laying is the main thing, Lily. She's the mother of every bee in the hive, and they all depend on her to keep it going. I don't care what their job is—they know the queen is their mother. She's the mother of thousands' (8.100).
Once again, August is reinforcing the mother-centric structure of bee life. She emphasizes the queen bee's ability to take care of thousands of bees, which is a pretty powerful thing, no? If that's not an example of girl power, we don't know what is . . .
Quote #8
I live in a hive of darkness, and you are my mother, I told her. You are the mother of thousands (8.234).
Here, Lily is talking to the statue of Our Lady of Chains, accepting her metaphorically as a kind of mother. In this moment, the novel draws a clear line between the Daughters of Mary's Mary-centric form of worship and the bee symbolism that pervades the novel. Mary and the queen bee are both maternal and powerful symbols, and Lily clearly combines them here.
Quote #9
'Good riddance,' he said, and moved toward the door. We had to open up our little wall of women to let him through (14.202).
When T. Ray comes to get Lily, she and August convince him to let her stay there. Because August had called the Daughters to serve as backup in case T. Ray presented a problem, T. Ray has to break through this "wall of women" to get out the door. The image conveys the strength and power of this group.
Quote #10
This is the autumn of wonders, yet every day, every single day, I go back to that burned afternoon in August when T. Ray left. I go back to that one moment when I stood in the driveway with small rocks and clumps of dirt around my feet and looked back at the porch. And there they were. All these mothers. I have more mothers than any eight girls off the street. They are the moons shining over me (14.227).
In the last lines of the novel, Lily rejoices that her search for details about her mother has yielded several maternal figures that provide her with support. Once again, she combines this reference to maternity with the symbol of the moon, highlighting the link between the two.