The Secret Life of Bees- Literary Technique

Lily comes a long way just to get one answer: if her Mom loves her, or if she left her. Close to the end, August gives Lily some of Deborah's belongings that she left behind. In the hatbox where the items were stored, she finds a picture of her Mom where "... her head bent toward a little girl who sat in a high chair with a smudge of baby food on the side of her mouth. The woman's hair curled in forty directions, beautiful, like it has just had it's hundred strokes. She held a baby spoon in her right hand. Light glazed on her face. The little girl wore a bib with a teddy bear on it. A sprig of hair on top of her head was tied with a bow. She lifted one hand toward the woman... I figured 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" (275, 276).

I love this quote because it is a very important time in Lily's journey because she discovers what she was searching for in the beginning. It is a really relieving moment in the book for both the reader and Lily because we all realize that Deborah did love Lily. It is also a great quote because it is easy to picture what the photo looks like without actually seeing it. It would definitely go under the category of good diction that reveals imagery. I think the author used this device so the reader can really see in their mind what the picture actually looks like, and to also get a sense of what Lily was feeling when she first sees it. A distinct image pops into my head when I read tis quote, and I think that's what Sue Monk Kidd was going for.