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Jeff Turner Dr. Kirsten Girten Critical Approaches to Literature Rough Draft December 6, 2018

Little Bee’s Agency in Little Bee Many white writers have crafted stories about black characters, some have been enshrined as classics in the cannon. Black communities, on the other hand have criticized many of these portrayals, seeing the black characters as lacking in agency and the stories in question as being too dependent on a “white savior.” Little Bee by Chris Cleave could easily be accused of this malfeasance, but that would be shortsighted. Little Bee maintains a strong sense of self and a great deal of agency throughout Little Bee. A way that Little Bee could have been structured that would have been easy and made it look like more of a ‘white savior’ narrative would have been for the novel to be about Little Bee being ‘rescued’ by Sarah and integrated into her family. There are a surplus of stories that follow these sorts of beats, the black character is in some sort of serious danger and they learn and teach invaluable lessons after being rescued by a white family. Cleave deftly avoids these trappings, he talks about in a Q&A at the end of the novel about how the book is based off of Manuel Bravo, an asylum seeker who was forced to hang himself after being detained in order to protect his son. In the course of this interview, he also talks about how there is much more misery than happiness in the world. Cleave seems to have a romantic, almost mystic, perception of this character, and could be accused of fetishizing Little Bee’s misery. In Chapter 9, Little Bee and Sarah have a conversation where it is revealed that Andrew left behind a lot of notes about asylum seekers and

refugees, and that Sarah is thinking about crafting a book about that subject using these notes. In Robert Dale Parker’s How to Interpret Literature, the feminism section zeroes in on “images-ofwomen” criticism, which emphasizes the idea that a female character must be an ideal role model. This can, as implied in the Parker text, easily be connected to race as well. Cleave appears to have considered this model of literary analysis heavily in the process of writing Little Bee, and whether Cleave is overcompensating in his writing of the character or not (his website references his fascination with refugees and his experience in journalism), it is clear that his intent is respectful. Little Bee’s independence radiates through the novel. An aspect of Little Bee’s character that says a lot about her agency is how she enters Sarah’s life. Sarah and Andrew do not come across her by fate, she tracks them down. She is actually rejected by Andrew, who assumes that she is a prank caller (17). He’s downright nasty, threatening to prosecute. When Little Bee shows up at Sarah’s house, shortly before Andrew’s funeral, Sarah is cross with her and seems annoyed that she showed up. Sarah mentions that they don’t really know each other that well and that they “just met. That’s all” (91). Sarah ultimately takes Little Bee in, but Cleave’s presentation of this reunion is more morally ambiguous than a story more focused on making a white readership feel good about themselves would be. Little Bee focuses more on the trials of its title character’s trials than it does on using her as a catalyst to help develop Sarah or establish Sarah as a ‘savior.’ Oftentimes Sarah is a witness to Bee’s experiences, such as in Chapter 5, when Bee is telling her about what happened to her after they met that first time on the beach. Sarah allows Bee to tell her story while remaining a captive audience. Later in the book, she and Bee are talking about Lawrence and Sarah talks to Bee almost as if she’s a contemporary. “I know what you’re going to tell me. You’re going to tell me that he cares more about himself than he does me,” (228) she says. She takes this tone where

she is trying to teach Bee about the adult world, but where she also views Bee as an equal. They both connect through their losses, Bee has lost her sister, her home and by extension her innocence while Sarah has lost her husband. Cleave understands that even though Bee is still a teenager, that she has seen a great deal for her age. He has a clear respect for that. The Postcolonial Studies section of the Parker text talks about “occupation colonies”, which are countries where the colonizer maintains a small presence after conquering. The colonized take up the views and practices of the colonizer. Little Bee does not reflect that. She is a fish out of water, but despite that she remains in touch with her heritage. Cleave says in the Q&A that the references to “the girls back home” serve as a sort of Greek Chorus to show that Little Bee understands the information being presented to her and could explain it to “the girls back home.” This allows Little Bee to project confidence as a speaker, and keep her voice comic rather than tragic. The opening passages have a lot to say about Bee’s feelings about identity, where she says “I wish I was a British pound coin because people would be pleased to see me coming” (1). The tone of this is defiant, Bee wants to live in the same world that everyone else does, but the power structures that are in place prohibit it. She has to learn how to assert herself in a world that will not allow her to do so. Little Bee has to look out for herself first and foremost, and this is most apparent in her interactions with Sarah’s boyfriend, Lawrence. He works for the Home Office, and when Sarah tells him about Little Bee, he immediately begins pushing her to call the police and have Bee deported. When Bee and Lawrence interact in chapter 7, Lawrence comes off as more of a villain that Bee must overcome. A stand out line here is when Lawrence says, “Oh please, this is Europe. We’re more than a little house-trained over here” (186). Lawrence’s comment is racist, albeit subtly; but there’s also a layer of irony to it. The Parker text talks about Nigeria, listing it

as an occupation colony. It was actually colonized by Europe, so this ‘house-training’ is exactly what bought Little Bee to this situation to begin with. Bee is forced to smooth-talk her way out of the situation, threatening to tell Lawrence’s wife about his affair. They interact again, in chapter nine, and Lawrence is more empathetic, but there is still something rather patronizing about him saying “I just don’t want to put you on the streets” (229). It is clear that Lawrence is trying to protect Sarah from the potential legal consequences she is liable to face for harboring Little Bee, and it is likely that he knows how severe those consequences could be just based off of the knowledge he has accumulated from his job, but it is also clear that Sarah wants to keep Little Bee around, and she makes it clear that her and Lawrence are fighting about it (227). What makes Lawrence’s concerns patronizing is the position of power that he has. Who is to say that he couldn’t do something to help Little Bee through the immigration process and live with him and Sarah peacefully? He seeks to control the relationship, which is why he voices opposition about Sarah finishing Andrew’s book. “I think he’s jealous,” (227) Sarah says. Even though Bee becomes a close friend for Sarah, Lawrence represents another obstacle that the white characters in the novel pose to her survival. The tragicomic tone that Cleave is going for reaches its peak in the final pages of Little Bee. Little Bee is hiding from soldiers while they are in Nigeria, but this is hampered by Charlie “running with his head down and his Batman cape fluttering behind him” (263). The soldiers are then ordered to fire on Charlie, which forces Little Bee to reveal herself. The irony here is that Charlie is dressed as a hero, but in reality is putting Little Bee in great danger. It would be impossible for any of these characters to be white saviors when considering how often characters like Charlie and Lawrence put Little Bee in grave danger. With few to rely on, both growing up

and over the course of the novel, Little Bee is forced to make a lot of choices for herself and grow up early. The psychoanalysis section of the Parker text talks about transference, where the analysand will present a past trauma in the form of a different behavior. Cleave’s writing of Little Bee is influenced by his transference of his own feelings about his subject matter. There are two instances where Cleave’s personal feelings come out in the novel, one is in Sarah mentioning that she wants to finish the book about refugees that Andrew was working on, and the other is in the character of Charlie. Sarah thinks to herself, “what if the story is that we are in the story?” (Cleave 233) when pondering how she is going to finish Andrew’s book. She is meant to serve as a stand in for Cleave, here. “There was something about Little Bee’s smile and her energy that just made me fall in love with her,” (234), just like Cleave fell in love with the stories of asylum seekers, Sarah wants to finish Andrew’s work for Little Bee. She believes that she can do something to help by completing this book, which can be argued as analogous for Cleave’s intent in writing this novel. Cleave feels guilty about being unable to help the people like Little Bee who suffer like this daily, so this character’s energy, agency, and independence are the mark that he hopes to contribute.

Charlie’s character arc

is another way Cleave transfers himself into the story, and a way that the reader can get an idea of how Cleave feels about Little Bee. Dressed as Batman, Charlie lived in a “state of constant readiness” (21) according to Sarah. There are action figures and bad guys all around the house. Charlie feels he needs to protect his family at all times, like he tells Little Bee when she initially suggests that he take off the Batman costume, “because if I is not Batman all the time then mine daddy dies” (223). Charlie wears the costume because he has a compulsion to feel like he can protect the people he loves, he later voices concern that the baddies will get Little Bee just like

they did his dad in that same conversation. Charlie is also Cleave, he wants to protect these marginalized people by telling their story or whatever way he can. Although Little Bee is not about a ‘white savior’, Cleave voices an at least subconscious desire to be one. Charlie eventually does take off his Batman costume, though, after Little Bee tells him that he’ll “boil if he keeps it on” (263). This is Cleave relieving himself of his guilt, the acknowledgment that he can contribute to the canon simply by being the gatekeeper of Little Bee’s story, and allowing the reader to empathize with her along with him. The reveal of Bee’s real name contributes to this transference, it is implied that Bee died in that detention center, but Cleave chooses to give her the real name of “Udo”, which means peace. Bee is being taken away, but in the process she has been allowed to tell her story on her terms. Cleave makes the logical choice by simply getting out of the way. Little Bee undoubtedly maintains her own agency when she could have easily been tokenized or became a vehicle of fetishization for the author’s ego. She is unabashedly a product of her culture, and freely chooses her path over the course of the story. It is possible that, as a character, Little Bee is too excellent, but even then she remains empathetic, and Cleave does not mince words. Little Bee unambiguously portrays how harsh this world is to marginalized people like Little Bee. This is not a world that was created for the reader, but rather one that the reader is allowed to live in for a little while. Cleave offers a lens into the struggles of marginalized groups by letting Little Bee the center of her own world, and layering the wallpaper of the story with real life facts. Cleave not only rejects the notion of a ‘white savior’, his white characters indirectly get Bee captured by Immigration. Bee lives and breathes, and by the end of Little Bee, the reader is allowed a moment of peace knowing that they now understand a little more about the world around them than they had before.

Works Cited Cleave, Chris. Little Bee. Anchor Canada, 2012. Parker, Robert Dale. How to Interpret Literature: Critical Theory for Literary and Cultural Studies. Oxford University Press, 2015. Chris Cleave. www.chriscleave.com. Accessed December 11, 2018....