Hour of the Bees

Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2016

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-8

Chapters 9-16

Chapter 17-Epilogue

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

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Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

Bees

The novel uses bees symbolically in several ways. First, they symbolize Carol’s magical connection with Rosa, her grandmother. Bees tended to follow Rosa in a swarm, and they follow Carol too, connecting Carol to her ancestry. Bees reappear when Carol comes to the ranch: “The bug zooms out the truck window, its jeweled body glittering black and gold in the sunlight. A bee” (9). This alludes to Carol’s role in rejuvenating the arid landscape by planting the seed and bringing the rain by bringing the bees (as Serge continually rants about, though the others initially dismiss his rant as dementia-related “word salad”).

Bees symbolize Carol’s magical connection to her family’s ancestral land; her return to it initiates the magical process of regeneration, convincing her father to move the family to the ranch rather than selling it. It’s a symbolic nod to Carol’s heritage, especially to her connection to Rosa, that she decides the ranch should become a bee farm rather than a sheep ranch.

Carol Versus Carolina

Carol, whose full name is Carolina, bemoans her “long, dramatic, embarrassing Spanish name” (43). Like the other Mexican American kids at her school, Carol shortens her name to an anglicized version. Serge is disappointed about this, reminding Carol that she’s named after her great-aunt Carolina and asking the girl, “Why do you spit on your roots, chiquita?” (25). Serge recognizes that Carol’s dislike of her name parallels her distaste for her Hispanic heritage more generally, including the family sheep ranch, her family’s tendency to speak in Spanish, and her mother’s Mexican cooking.

In the novel’s concluding chapters, Carolina embraces her Mexican heritage, deciding to use her full name rather than the anglicized shortened version, Carol. This change mirrors her newfound pride in her Hispanic roots and parallels her family’s move back to the ranch, which has become rejuvenated thanks to the magic that Carol initiated when she planted Rosa’s seed. Tellingly, Carolina (previously Carol) teaches Luis (previously Lu) Spanish, enjoys her mother’s Mexican cooking, and feels pride and a sense of personal heritage and identity at the ranch, where the family vows to remain.

The Felling of the Tree

The felling of the magical tree symbolizes greed as well as hunger for adventure. Despite their life in the idyllic village, free from pain or death, the villagers (whom Rosa epitomizes) hunger for new experiences; they want to see the world’s many sites beyond the confines of the village. During their travels, they’re safe from the risks of injury or death because they carry pieces of the tree with them. These travels are characterized as rapacious and self-serving: “Instead of prayers under their breaths, they spoke loudly and grandly of their travels” (189). The exploitation of the tree’s magic has transformed soft-spoken and inherently grateful people into boastful and selfish tourists of the world. The text implies that in wanting to travel from the village, yet still enjoy the magical tree’s powers, the villagers exploited the tree and took its powers for granted. Furthermore, violent language describes the damage to the magical tree, further characterizing its felling as a selfish and immoral act motivated by thoughtless greed: “They hacked wood from the bald tree, clawed it from the trunk, tore it, ripped it away at odd angles, splintered and raw” (189).

Rosa and Sergio epitomize the push and pull between the warring desires to leave or stay. Similarly, the two characters hold contrary positions on the tree’s destruction; Sergio suggests that they could take it in turns using the bracelet, whereas Rosa suggests that the tree has plenty of wood for everyone to have a part of it. Ironically, their desire to use the tree to protect themselves destroys the tree, thus resulting in the deaths of the villagers: They’re no longer protected by the tree’s magic, which gave them immortality. Serge, distressed, tells his wife, “but now we will die,” and Rosa counters, “but at least we will have lived” (241).

The symbolic meaning of the tree’s destruction changes as the story progresses. While the destruction of the natural world is characterized as a tragic mistake that has dire consequences, Serge comes to appreciate Rosa’s point of view that death is a natural part of life if one lives a full and authentic life. The tree’s destruction allows the villagers to live fully and then die, and in her death, Rosa leaves the seed for the next magical tree, which Carol plants, symbolizing the process of death and rebirth. Thus, the novel characterizes death as not only necessary, but also as a new beginning.