Yevette , a spirited Jamaican girl, bribes a guard with her body, and he releases her, Little Bee, and two other girls into the countryside with no further assistance.
The four wander to a farm where one, traumatized by her memories, hangs herself. Years before, after Sarah began an affair with Lawrence Osborn , she and Andrew took a holiday to Nigeria, paid for by a sponsor of the magazine that Sarah edits. There, Little Bee and her sister, fleeing an oil war in their village, ask the couple to help them escape the men who want to kill them.
Andrew refuses to cut off his finger to appease the soldiers, and so Sarah does, thus saving Little Bee, but not her sister.
Both Sarah and Andrew assume that both girls die. Lawrence wants Little Bee to call the police, but he does not want to risk his relationship with Sarah. Sarah, whose life has been deeply challenged by Little Bee, panics: She realizes that she has valued the wrong things by placing mindless work ahead of her son. Sarah and Lawrence find the boy, but only after Little Bee has called the police. The police suspect her as culpable and deport her back to Nigeria within days.
One of the soldiers shoot at Charlie but misses, and Little Bee runs towards him scoops him up in her arms, revealing herself. As Little Bee holds Charlie, she asks him to take off his Batman costume so he can play freely with the other children. She tells him her real name is Udo, and Charlie, emboldened by her courage, takes off his costume and runs to play with the other children in his own skin.
Even as the soldiers reach Little Bee, she thinks the sight of Charlie playing freely and being himself is so beautiful that she cries tears of joy. Little Bee. Plot Summary. LitCharts Teacher Editions. Teach your students to analyze literature like LitCharts does. Detailed explanations, analysis, and citation info for every important quote on LitCharts.
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Teachers and parents! Struggling with distance learning? Our Teacher Edition on Little Bee can help. Themes All Themes. Symbols All Symbols. Theme Wheel. When Sarah is talking earlier in the book, she seems to refer to the year her son dressed as Batman all summer - how they were all trying to escape something Even later in the book she mentions how it's difficult to talk about the time Charlie disappears by the Thames - "even now".
I just finished it and am paraphrasing but I think you have to deduce she survives. I'm not as sure about Little Bee. But everything about the book got worse after they got back to Nigeria.
It became very unrealistic. They weren't scared enough. I don't know, it almost seemed like he was rushing to finish the book and it took a lot away from the overall reading experience for me. Bee became really selfish, they had to go to the beach for her - no they didn't. It put everyone at risk. And it didn't explore deep emotions for her about her sister at the beach, she just fell asleep. And had a really selfish dream no less, about Sarah and Charlie living in her country with her. And making Lawrence the bad guy.
Like she wanted Sarah to only need her. I don't know, the way he wrote Bee towards the end, I didn't like as much. I did really like all the characters, particularly Sarah.
Perhaps because I could completely identify with her crisis of conscience over her suburbia lifestyle and inability to escape it. Sep 06, PM. Little Bee ending : With Little Bee's last words on the page, I did not want to believe she was gone- you know what I mean?
A very brave young girl. Then I remembered Charlie whom I came to adore and felt real worried for Sarah down the beach alone far away from Charlie. He was free and playing with the other children in the water safe away from the armed soldiers.
I truly believe Mom and son- Sarah and Charlie survived. I want to believe it. Many thanks for this discussion, I will read the ones I missed. Sep 12, PM.
I think that ambiguous endings piss people off when they're looking for a story. I see it as an invitation to think and ponder. It forces you into it. It's much harder.
I think Charlie and Sarah survived. I don't think that was the easier option, especially not for Sarah who will have to explain what happened to herself, to Lawrence, and to Charlie forever. I also felt that Little Bee drowned herself at the end of the book.
The sound of the ocean was what made me believe this. Sep 21, PM. Kim wrote: "Also, as part of that author online group, someone posted the following which he didn't counter.
I also really liked the way it ends full circle: on a beach, just as the story began must have bee It did not seem realistic to me after the original beach scene. I think they would have stayed far away from there. Sep 30, PM. The ending i was not fond of. But then again it seemed like real life, and not some Happyly Ever After non sence taht never happends.
Jan 05, PM. Is it possible that in revealing that Charlie is a white child, they could all be saved? In essence, he was the super hero who saved the day. I still didn't like the ending. However, I have to think that all the Batman and Superhero prattle had to have some purpose. Jan 08, PM. I would like to think that Charlie and Sarah were spared.
Although it was a terribly sad ending, I don't see there could have been any other realistic way - and it was perfectly clear throughout that it wasn't going to be a fairytale. Little Bee did not fear death. In fact, she expected it a lot sooner than it came. The thing that made the ending uplifting for me, was that Little Bee was happy.
I feel sure that she died and knew she was going to die but it didn't matter to her, because she believed that Charlie and Sarah would be okay - completely selfless. Jul 05, AM. Since Sarah swore she would not give up on Little Bee, it's assumed again that she fought to have her eventually released.
Jul 08, AM. I don't understand why they went back to the same beach. Jul 08, PM. To say goodbye to her sister. Jul 18, AM. I didn't expect a positive ending, but to be so ambiguous in the outcomes for Charlie, Sarah and little Bee is just frustrating. To stay at the beach is naive of Sarah and put them all at risk, let alone going to the south at all for a prolonged period of time. Annoying ending but otherwise awesome book. I do not think that this was meant to be a realistic book, but an allegory.
Little Bee was sacrified in the end. Jan 17, PM. I give the writer his credit, for writing in a women's voices, Nigerian, African Caribean, I give credit to the wisdom and reflective narrations.
But I invested time and stole moments out of my rest hours to read this. If I want realistic I just go to work amongst the real Little Bees! May 24, AM. Well definitely the ending is not a clear one and it fall upon the reader to assume the next. Every one can have a different opinion about it. But looking upon the narration I think they all survived and the most plausible explanation would be that they would arrest little bee and lock her up.
Then Sarah would have finished the book that Andrew started and definitely the book would have got huge media attention and there would be a movement of some sort for justice to the asylum seekers and eventually they would have released little bee. But since she mentions it to be a sad story I can assume that she was not allowed to go to back to Sarah to England but she has to stay in Nigeria And hence she is narrating this story after all these events.
Jun 09, PM. I must be the only person who wishes Sarah had been shot on the beach at the end. Everything Sarah did in the entire book was for her own self-interest: emasculating Andrew by chopping off her own finger; dragging Little Bee to trigger areas that would only magnify Little Bee's terror; usurping writing the book that Andrew had envisioned, so she could be the heroine, and, for heaven's sake, taking the three of them to the beach.
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