The Murmur of Bees

The Murmur of Bees details a complex Mexican society in which an unspoken, universal recognition of two basic populations—a privileged upper class and an unprivileged lower class—affects all aspects of life. Segovia differentiates between these two tiers not by overtly naming them but through distinct descriptions of each. For example, the upper-class Morales family is depicted as being fair skinned, steeped in traditional rituals, devoutly Catholic, and deeply concerned about maintaining established standards of propriety. By contrast, Segovia depicts lower-class individuals like Nana Reja and Anselmo as dark-skinned, rooted in superstitious beliefs, and largely ignorant of the regimented social interactions of the landowner class. The author implies that the upper class is composed largely of Spanish descendants and the lower-class of Indigenous peoples descended from inhabitants before Europeans arrived.

Segovia reveals the mindsets of the two groups by describing their desires and fears. The upper-class population is fully invested in maintaining social mores dating back to Spanish occupation: festivals, rites of passage, property succession, and church ties. Land ownership is an assumed, unquestioned right among members of this group. Many upper-class individuals, particularly Beatriz and Francisco, perceive themselves as responsible for the welfare of the lower-class individuals within their purview. Thus, when the Spanish flu pandemic hits Linares, Francisco takes those house staff and hacienda campesinos who haven’t risked exposure with his family when they quarantine. One of the main reasons Beatriz is overcome with anguish when an assailant murders her servant Lupita is that she promised Lupita’s mother that she’d protect the young Indigenous woman when she became a servant of the Morales family. This arrangement hearkens back to the serf/lord relationship of medieval Europe, in which peasants provided a portion of their harvest and goods to the nobility, who in return offered protection. Francisco’s investment in this assumed relationship blinds him to the possibility that certain campesinos would distrust the relationship and rebel violently against landowners.

While most of the lower-class characters Segovia describes are cooperatively subservient, it’s historically accurate that many Mexicans—particularly descendants of Indigenous tribes, such as Anselmo and the roving agrarians—struggled against institutionalized inequality. The revolution, waged over a full decade, did little to address the disparity between the classes apart from instituting a new constitution with some provisions that potentially offered greater equality. As Segovia depicts those developments, the landowner class tended to view the agrarian reforms as annoying challenges around which they worked to preserve their traditional advantages. The author describes the beginning of an era in which certain parts of Mexico shift from an agrarian to an industrial economy—but in which the shift from a rural to an urban society doesn’t impact class disparities, and these disparities persist today.