Little Bee

Sarah, wife of Andrew O’Rourke, is a the founding editor of Nixie magazine and mother of a young boy, Charlie O’Rourke. After a fairly privileged upbringing, Sarah’s “first real choice” (123) came in university, when she chose journalism. Marrying Andrew was the second choice. Despite this fairly stable work and family life, she emerges “from the introverted, chrysalid stage of early motherhood” (150) into a new life when she meets Lawrence Osborn.

Her affair leads her to Nigeria where she meets Little Bee and Nkiruka on a beach. Sarah cuts off her own finger to save the girls. This is not the beginning of the “serious times” (150), but it is the moment when they grow: Andrew will be haunted by these events for a long time after. Sarah continues to struggle in her relationship with Andrew after that event, no longer extremely motivated to repair their relationship and also disconnected from him in his depression.

Once Little Bee arrives, Sarah must confront the way that “some of the world’s badness is inside [her], and that maybe [she’s] a part of it” (209). Working through her husband’s death, but also hearing about Little Bee’s life, leads Sarah to a moral dilemma. She quits her job at the magazine. Then, just after the fact, she plunges her phone into the Thames by accident while pursuing her lost son who, she realizes, is her whole world. She cannot “let [Little Bee] go back alone” (250), even after she is deported through an uncomfortable program. She, and Charlie, travel to Nigeria to help Little Bee see that “if we can show that what happened to [her] village happened to a hundred villages, then the power is on our side” (253).

Charlie, who likes to go by “Batman,” is Sarah and Andrew’s son. A three year old who divides the world into “goodies” and “baddies,” Charlie longs to be a superhero. He “is convinced he will lose all his powers if he takes off his Batman costume” (201), his mother explains to anyone who asks. Later, Charlie confesses to Little Bee that he believes taking off his costume will mean his father, who is already dead, will not be safe. Even as Little Bee tries to convince him otherwise, Charlie continues to wear the costume, screaming when forced to take it off.

At the end of Little Bee, Charlie learns Little Bee’s real name, Udo. True to their pact, he removes his Batman costume, just as Little Bee has removed the mask covering herself up. He runs naked in the surf, in Nigeria, where his thin white body contrasts with the others around him. Charlie is, ultimately, the place where Little Bee and Sarah want to place “the hopes of this whole human world” (264). 

Lawrence is the man with whom Sarah is having an affair. The day that they meet, he is self-deprecating, “grinning, not conspicuously handsome” (152), but he charms Sarah. He is a relief to postpartum Sarah, and she is a relief to him, a husband and father of three. Sarah worries about telling Lawrence about Little Bee, and indeed, Lawrence’s reaction to her is not a pleasant one. He becomes angry with Little Bee for her role in Andrew’s death, for the fact that he cannot tell Sarah, whose “head is fucked up enough about all this” (195), and that he cannot turn her in to the police. Ultimately, even though Sarah sees Lawrence as “not entirely bad, at the end of the day” (250), the competing demands on his time lead him to use harsh language and damage his relationship with Little Bee.

Andrew is Sarah’s husband, an opinion writer at The Times, and the father of Charlie. When he, overworked, runs into Sarah at a party she attends with Lawrence, their affair sends him into a depression. This depression only accelerates after their adventure in Nigeria. Thereafter, he is haunted by the fact that he is a man who “knows where the commas go, but wouldn’t cut off one finger to save” (193) Little Bee and her sister. Andrew dies by suicide at the start of Little Bee, leaving behind a haunting memory for Little Bee, who watches him die, and a dossier of materials on the oil wars in Nigeria, which his mother finds. As all grapple with his loss, they also become empowered to finish his story. 

Nkiruka is Little Bee’s older sister. Little Bee remembers her as a “giddy and flirtatious” (7) girl on the brink of womanhood. This sense of her growing womanhood eventually leads to sexual violence after Sarah’s intervention in the girls’ future fails. Little Bee listens to her sister “begging to die” (131) after she is gang raped by soldiers. Despite this haunting, horrific memory, Little Bee remembers her sister in many courageous and kind moments: Her kindness is what inspires the nickname Little Bee gives her in the jungle. Nkiruka’s memory stays with Little Bee and draws her, and Sarah, back to the beach where she died at the text’s conclusion.