The Bee Sting

The novel’s temporal setting situates the Barnes family firmly in the global aftershocks of the 2008 US financial crash. As Ireland, whose economic turnaround in the early 21st century was dependent on the same real estate bubble, enters a major economic recession followed by a depression in 2009, the resulting job losses and plummeting stock market crater businesses. The Barnes family reflects this reality in microcosm. Dickie owns a car dealership business, which suffers a severe downturn when people stop buying new cars; the collapse compromises the financial safety of his family and his sense of himself as a provider. By focusing almost exclusively on the travails of one family, the novel thus uses the lens of Personal Tragedy and Resilience to examine a world-wide phenomenon.

The small-town setting explores The Difficulties of Open Communication. One element of the paradoxical nature of small-town life is secret keeping. Cass and Elaine see the place where they live as oppressive because everyone knows everybody’s business, so it can be difficult to maintain privacy. However, this seeming body of knowledge does not actually translate into connection. For instance, when Cass learns from a neighbor that her mother used to be engaged to Frank, the fact that she hears this detail as malicious gossip distances her from Imelda rather than strengthening their bond—she is hurt both by the truth that her mother and father have a less than romantic history and by the sense that her parents are evasive. Moreover, knowing one another’s histories makes the Barneses’ small town judgmental. When Dickie closes one of his car dealership locations, the entire Barnes family worries about what people will think or say about them. This in turn translates into more dysfunctional secret keeping and shame. A good example of this is Imelda’s supposed wedding day bee sting—a detail so important it becomes the title of the novel. The bee sting story is a lie meant to hide Imelda’s shame at her father’s abuse, just as the veil she wore throughout the wedding covered up the lovelessness of the marriage. Now, the bee sting lie—and the kind of maladaptive communication strategy it embodies—spans generations.

The third-person limited narration gives readers an intimate glimpse into Cass’s coming-of-age journey. As she is finishing up her last year of high school and preparing to leave for university, Cass is dealing with the hopes and frustrations that define adolescence. Cass is eager to get away from her family and gain her own independence in a big city, where she can develop her sense of self. Cass takes it for granted that she’ll be able to move to an expensive city like Dublin. Her privileged and sheltered upbringing has shielded her from having to understand her family’s finances—an attitude cultivated by Imelda, whose own love of luxury comes from a very different place of having grown up with privation.

Cass’s story introduces the novel’s interest in LBGTQ+ sexualities; fixated on her friend, Elaine, for whom she has romantic feelings, Cass succumbs to the peer pressure to ditch studying, hook up with a boy she doesn’t really like, and whatever else Elaine wants her to do. Cass allows Elaine to determine her identity; their relationship will eventually become a foil for Dickie’s better connection to Willie. Cass’s love for Elaine is passionate and idolizing, but Cass isn’t aware of its true nature. Complicating Cass’s feelings is her jealousy: She both covets Elaine’s good looks, wealth, and seemingly easy life and is desperate for Elaine’s attention and affection. It is clear to the reader that Cass’s feelings are unrequited, as Elaine rejects Cass when Cass gets praise from Elaine’s favorite teacher or when Elaine has access to other friends—a dynamic that foreshadows a future rupture.

Part 1 is titled “Sylvias” after the women poets that spark Cass’s newfound love for poetry. Miss Grehan’s lessons on Anne Sexton, Elizabeth Bishop, Anna Akhmatova, Sappho, and Sylvia Plath are formative for Cass because they echo her desire for Elaine and her literary ambitions. Cass sees herself in this poetry and recognizes the power of the female voice in an otherwise male-dominated literary world. Poems about love and struggle speak to Cass’s elation when she is around Elaine and frustration when she is at home with her family. Cass is searching for belonging, and these women poets invite her to understand and remake the world.

The introduction of Richard plays on a familiar trope: A handsome and mysterious stranger comes into town, symbolizing something new, different, and dangerous. Here, Richard is an outsider in many ways. First, he is a foreigner whose heritage is immediately obscured by the self-centered young women who do not call him by his actual name, Ryszard—a detail that highlights issues of xenophobia. Second, he struggles to find employment and a place to live—financial precarity that makes him both vulnerable and predatory. Third, his more open expression of sexual desire puts him at odds with the repressive town; his interest in having a three-way with Cass and Elaine and his insistence that they kiss quickly unmasks the real dynamic between the two young women. Finally, Richard’s machinations position him outside the normal power structures of the community, exposing it to larger societal problems.