The Bumblebee Flies Anyway Literary Qualities

This Study Guide consists of approximately 13 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of The Bumblebee Flies Anyway.

The Bumblebee Flies Anyway Literary Qualities

This Study Guide consists of approximately 13 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of The Bumblebee Flies Anyway.
This section contains 756 words
(approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page)
Buy The Bumblebee Flies Anyway Short Guide

The Bumblebee Flies Anyway is a gripping story that holds the reader's interest from beginning to end. The novel contains a richness of meaning partially realized through its use of symbols. One such symbol is the lilac bush. The "lilac bush heavy with clusters and fragrance" suggests Walt Whitman's famous poem on the death of Lincoln, "When Lilacs Last in Dooryard Bloom'd" (1865). Contrasted to a stark and lifeless tree nearby, the lilac bush here celebrates "the continuity of life," "the never-ending process of life," a sense of nature, a hint of God, man's hope for immortality. Just as the lilac bush, when it loses its blooms, does not die, so, too, Barney reflects, may be human life: "death only a sleep from which they eventually awakened."

The central symbol in the novel is its title, an allusion to the bumblebee, which is not supposed to fly...

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This section contains 756 words
(approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page)
Buy The Bumblebee Flies Anyway Short Guide
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The Bumblebee Flies Anyway from Gale. ©2005-2006 Thomson Gale, a part of the Thomson Corporation. All rights reserved.