5. Character Archetypes

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

T.Ray from The Secret Life of Bees.

The character that clearly represents the threshold guardian in this novel is T.Ray. T.Ray is the father of Lily Owens; a very bitter man who is distinctly cruel to his daughter.T.Ray is the antagonist in the novel, who generally goes against the protagonist. There are various roles that T.Ray shares with  the threshold guardian, which includes the following:

First obstacle to the hero: T.Ray doesn't allow Lily to go see Rosaleen, while she is in the hospital. Instead, Lily has to sneak out of the house without T.Ray knowing.
Gateway to new world: With T.Ray out of the way, Lily has the opportunity  to experience the world in a different way. 
Neutral character: T.Ray is mentioned a lot throughout the first part of the novel, but as the story progresses he isn't mentioned as much.
Tests heroes worthiness: When T.Ray is angry with Lily, he punishes her by making her kneel on an anthill size pile of grits. Lily never budges when kneeling on the grits, but instead deals with the pain.  
Makes journey not easy: Although T.Ray is out of the picture for now, Lily and Rosaleen have to make sure that they keep an eye out for him. He will be doing all he can  in search of the two of them, making their lives miserable.
Hero will encounter threshold guardian early in the story: Lily has lived with T.Ray her entire life, not being able to get away from him. Early on in the story, when Lily has the chance she escapes from T.Ray's whereabouts.

"In a matter of seconds I knew exactly what I had to do- leave. I had to get away from T.Ray, who was probably on his way back this minute to do Lord-knows-what to me. Not to mention I had to get Rosaleen out of jail." (Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees, page 41)

T.Ray was trying to get in the way of Lily; holding her back from rescuing Rosaleen. Although, Lily doesn't let T.Ray get the best of her. Instead she continues working towards her goal, which is to save Rosaleen and get T.Ray out of her life.