Epigraph Evaluation

The epigraph at the beginning of Chapter Thirteen hints at the incredible emotional pain Lily will have to carry for the next few weeks as she battles the truth about her mother. After learning from August that her mother had left her with T. Ray, Lily is devastated with the thought that both her parents might not have loved her, leaving her to call herself "unlovable," and the emotional baggage for her to shoulder proves to be exhausting and overwhelming. In the chapter, she even says, "I sat up, feeling like my body weighed two hundred pounds. Like somebody had backed the cement truck up to the honey house, swung the pipe over my chest, and started pouring" (257-258). Just as the epigraph talks about the miraculous talent of bees to carry a load heavier than themselves, Lily has to battle and live with a weight much larger than what she thought she could ever handle.

Epigraph:

"A worker [bee] is just over a centimeter long and weigh only about sixty milligrams; nevertheless, she can fly with a load heavier than herself." -The Honey Bee