Little Bee

Across Little Bee, different characters seek refuge. At the beginning of the text, Sarah describes Andrew’s death as “a refuge,” a place “where you go when a new name, or a mask and cape, can no longer hide you from yourself” (22). In Sarah’s mind, the summer of Little Bee was one in which they all could be “refugees from ourselves” (22) before returning to the relative reality of the world.

The concept of being a refugee, then, becomes a universal in Little Bee. All run from horror. At the same time, Little Bee recognizes that she, a political refugee, experiences that horror differently and more explicitly than, say, Andrew, who is “full of evil spirits” (191). Little Bee sees herself as embodying horror that can now “speak the Queen’s English” (46) but cannot ever escape the horror of her past experiences, at least not fully.

In longing to write down the horror that has shaped their lives so palpably, first Andrew, and then Sarah and Little Bee seek to tell stories rather than move beyond them. The refugees, ultimately, seek power: power over the narratives told about them. Ultimately, Little Bee is ambivalent about how well the power of storytelling can stand up in a globalizing world; on a personal level, the novel, full of stories told in different and increasingly enmeshed voices, sees storytelling as a way to gain power from emotion.

Charlie’s need to be known by all as “Batman” is empowering for him, but it is also a trap. He feels that he has “to keep [his] Batman costume on forever” (225) to somehow save his father. Although it is, in his mother’s eyes, just a game, the desire to have power over his life is a desperate desire to be free of his own story and take on another.

This use of names to take on a new story is familiar for Little Bee. Where Sarah’s decision to keep her maiden name would be considered an act of feminist independence in Britain, Little Bee frequently tries to detach herself from her old names. In response, people wonder at her odd name: it is her “whole name,” she explains to the policeman, “that is who I am” (243). Even the name designed to keep her free from bad men condemns her, though, as this only convinces the officer that she is “probably a nutter” (243).

Little Bee tries to name herself “back to life” (221) with a mysterious boy in London, just as she did with her sister in the jungle. Returning to her old name, Udo, in front of Charlie is the ultimate act of freedom, however. Just like Charlie taking off his mask, and Sarah abandoning her phone (however accidentally), Little Bee loses track of her own effort to contain herself. In so doing, she is able to live, unlike the nameless woman who dies by suicide at the farm shortly after her initial escape. Living in one’s own name can bring “peace,” or “Udo,” what Little Bee unlocks when she returns to that name.