Little Bee

by

Chris Cleave

Sarah O’Rourke Character Analysis

Sarah is the second narrator of the story and the secondary protagonist, as well as Andrew’s wife and Charlie’s mother. At the beginning of the novel, she is the editor of a successful fashion magazine in London and puts great effort into maintaining her identity as a successful career woman and working mother. However, when her marriage with Andrew loses its spark, Sarah begins an affair with a man named Lawrence. After six months, Andrew discovers the affair and is deeply hurt. Sarah recommends they take a vacation in Nigeria—she doesn’t know anything about the country, but a travel agency gave her free tickets. However, during their vacation, Little Bee and Nkiruka approach her and Andrew on the beach, followed by mercenaries. When Andrew cannot bring himself to cut off his finger to save the girls—which the mercenaries demand—Sarah cuts her own finger off instead, saving Little Bee’s life. After the men take Little Bee and Nkiruka away, Sarah and Andrew return to England feeling both traumatized and numb. Sarah continues her affair with Lawrence while Andrew spirals into depression for two years until he hangs himself. Although Sarah knows she should feel sad for her husband’s death, she initially does not feel anything. Little Bee moves in with her and recounts all that happened to her and Nkiruka, which both horrifies Sarah and breaks her numbness. Little Bee’s story makes Sarah realize how pointless her life and career are, focused on all of the wrong things, and she quits her job to work on the research Andrew began into Nigeria and the refugee crisis. When immigration authorities deport Little Bee back to Nigeria, Sarah takes Charlie and follows her, hoping to save the girl’s life by leveraging Sarah’s identity as a British journalist. With Little Bee’s help, Sarah spends weeks interviewing Nigerians who’ve suffered from the oil war, until Little Bee is arrested by Nigerian soldiers, where she will presumably meet her death.

Sarah O’Rourke Quotes in Little Bee

The Little Bee quotes below are all either spoken by Sarah O’Rourke or refer to Sarah O’Rourke. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
The Refugee Experience Theme Icon
).
Chapter Two Quotes

That summer—the summer my husband died—we all had identities we were loath to let go of. My son had his Batman costume, I still used my husband’s surname, and Little Bee, though she was relatively safe with us, still clung to the name she had taken in a time of terror. We were exiles from reality that summer. We were refuges from ourselves.

Related Characters: Sarah O’Rourke (speaker), Little Bee, Andrew O’Rourke, Charlie O’Rourke / “Batman”
Related Symbols: Charlie’s Batman Costume
Page Number: 22
Explanation and Analysis:

In place of my finger is a stump, a phantom digit that used to be responsible for the E, D, and C keys on my laptop. I can’t rely on E, D, and C anymore. They go missing when I need them most. Pleased becomes please. Ecstasies becomes stasis.

Related Characters: Sarah O’Rourke (speaker), Little Bee, Andrew O’Rourke
Related Symbols: Sarah’s Missing Finger
Page Number: 22
Explanation and Analysis:

He wouldn’t give up, but if I am strict and force myself now to decide upon the precise moment in this whole story when my heart irreparably broke, it was the moment when I saw the weariness and the doubt creep into my son’s small muscles as his fingers slipped, for the tenth time, from the pale oak lid.

Related Characters: Sarah O’Rourke (speaker), Andrew O’Rourke, Charlie O’Rourke / “Batman”
Related Symbols: Charlie’s Batman Costume
Page Number: 43
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter Four Quotes

How calm my eyes were, since that day on the beach in Africa. When there has been a loss so fundamental I suppose that to lose just one more thing—a finger, perhaps, or a husband—is of absolutely no consequence at all.

Related Characters: Sarah O’Rourke (speaker), Little Bee, Andrew O’Rourke
Related Symbols: Sarah’s Missing Finger
Page Number: 91
Explanation and Analysis:

So, I realized—life had finally broken through. How silly it looked now, my careful set of defenses against nature: my brazen magazine, my handsome husband, my Maginot line of motherhood and affairs. The world, the real world, had found a way through. It had sat down on my sofa and it would not be denied any longer.

Related Characters: Sarah O’Rourke (speaker), Little Bee, Andrew O’Rourke
Page Number: 95
Explanation and Analysis:

“I just think this is not our affair and so…”

“Ah,” the killer said. “Not your affair.”

He turned to the other hunters and spread his arms.

“Not his affair, him say. Him say, this is black-man business. Ha ha ha ha! […] First time I hear white man say my business not his business. You got our gold. You got our oil. What is wrong with our girls?”

Related Characters: Andrew O’Rourke (speaker), The Leader / The Killer (speaker), Little Bee, Sarah O’Rourke, Nkiruka / Kindness
Page Number: 112
Explanation and Analysis:

I met Andrew O’Rourke when we were both working on a London evening paper. Ours seemed to perfectly express the spirit of the city. Thirty-one pages of celebrity goings-on about town, and one page of news from the world which existed beyond London’s orbital motorway—the paper offered it up as a sort of memento mori.

Related Characters: Sarah O’Rourke (speaker), Andrew O’Rourke
Page Number: 123
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter Six Quotes

I think [Andrew] truly started to believe that Britain was sinking in to the sea. […] Now that Charlie was almost two I suppose I was looking into the future my child would have to inhabit, and realizing that bitching about it might possibly not be the most constructive strategy.

Related Characters: Sarah O’Rourke (speaker), Andrew O’Rourke, Lawrence Osborn
Page Number: 151
Explanation and Analysis:

“I’ve spent two years denying what happened on that beach. Ignoring it, letting it fester. That’s what Andrew did too, and it killed him in the end. I’m not going to let it kill me and Charlie.”

Related Characters: Sarah O’Rourke (speaker), Little Bee, Andrew O’Rourke, Charlie O’Rourke / “Batman”, Lawrence Osborn
Page Number: 172
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter Seven Quotes

The gasoline flowing through the pump made a high-pitched sound, as if the screaming of my family was still dissolved in it. The nozzle of the gasoline hose went right inside the fuel tank of Sarah’s car, so that the transfer of the fluid was hidden.

Related Characters: Little Bee (speaker), Sarah O’Rourke
Page Number: 181
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter Eight Quotes

I closed my eyes and listened to the hum of the fluorescent lights, the buzzing of the fax machines, and the fluid chatter of the editorial girls on their phones to fashion houses. It all seemed suddenly insane, like wearing a little green bikini to an African war.

Related Characters: Sarah O’Rourke (speaker), Little Bee
Page Number: 201
Explanation and Analysis:

“Save [Little Bee] and there’s a whole world of them behind her. A whole swarm of Little Bees, coming here to feed.”

“Or to pollinate.”

Related Characters: Sarah O’Rourke (speaker), Lawrence Osborn (speaker), Little Bee
Page Number: 207
Explanation and Analysis:

“You start off thinking you can kill all the baddies and save the world. Then you get a little bit older, maybe Little Bee’s age, and you realize that some of the world’s badness is inside you, that maybe you’re part of it. And then you get a little bit older still, and a bit more comfortable, and you start wondering if the badness you’ve seen in yourself is really all that bad at all.”

Related Characters: Sarah O’Rourke (speaker), Little Bee, Charlie O’Rourke / “Batman”
Page Number: 209
Explanation and Analysis:
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Sarah O’Rourke Quotes in Little Bee

The Little Bee quotes below are all either spoken by Sarah O’Rourke or refer to Sarah O’Rourke. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
The Refugee Experience Theme Icon
).
Chapter Two Quotes

That summer—the summer my husband died—we all had identities we were loath to let go of. My son had his Batman costume, I still used my husband’s surname, and Little Bee, though she was relatively safe with us, still clung to the name she had taken in a time of terror. We were exiles from reality that summer. We were refuges from ourselves.

Related Characters: Sarah O’Rourke (speaker), Little Bee, Andrew O’Rourke, Charlie O’Rourke / “Batman”
Related Symbols: Charlie’s Batman Costume
Page Number: 22
Explanation and Analysis:

In place of my finger is a stump, a phantom digit that used to be responsible for the E, D, and C keys on my laptop. I can’t rely on E, D, and C anymore. They go missing when I need them most. Pleased becomes please. Ecstasies becomes stasis.

Related Characters: Sarah O’Rourke (speaker), Little Bee, Andrew O’Rourke
Related Symbols: Sarah’s Missing Finger
Page Number: 22
Explanation and Analysis:

He wouldn’t give up, but if I am strict and force myself now to decide upon the precise moment in this whole story when my heart irreparably broke, it was the moment when I saw the weariness and the doubt creep into my son’s small muscles as his fingers slipped, for the tenth time, from the pale oak lid.

Related Characters: Sarah O’Rourke (speaker), Andrew O’Rourke, Charlie O’Rourke / “Batman”
Related Symbols: Charlie’s Batman Costume
Page Number: 43
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter Four Quotes

How calm my eyes were, since that day on the beach in Africa. When there has been a loss so fundamental I suppose that to lose just one more thing—a finger, perhaps, or a husband—is of absolutely no consequence at all.

Related Characters: Sarah O’Rourke (speaker), Little Bee, Andrew O’Rourke
Related Symbols: Sarah’s Missing Finger
Page Number: 91
Explanation and Analysis:

So, I realized—life had finally broken through. How silly it looked now, my careful set of defenses against nature: my brazen magazine, my handsome husband, my Maginot line of motherhood and affairs. The world, the real world, had found a way through. It had sat down on my sofa and it would not be denied any longer.

Related Characters: Sarah O’Rourke (speaker), Little Bee, Andrew O’Rourke
Page Number: 95
Explanation and Analysis:

“I just think this is not our affair and so…”

“Ah,” the killer said. “Not your affair.”

He turned to the other hunters and spread his arms.

“Not his affair, him say. Him say, this is black-man business. Ha ha ha ha! […] First time I hear white man say my business not his business. You got our gold. You got our oil. What is wrong with our girls?”

Related Characters: Andrew O’Rourke (speaker), The Leader / The Killer (speaker), Little Bee, Sarah O’Rourke, Nkiruka / Kindness
Page Number: 112
Explanation and Analysis:

I met Andrew O’Rourke when we were both working on a London evening paper. Ours seemed to perfectly express the spirit of the city. Thirty-one pages of celebrity goings-on about town, and one page of news from the world which existed beyond London’s orbital motorway—the paper offered it up as a sort of memento mori.

Related Characters: Sarah O’Rourke (speaker), Andrew O’Rourke
Page Number: 123
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter Six Quotes

I think [Andrew] truly started to believe that Britain was sinking in to the sea. […] Now that Charlie was almost two I suppose I was looking into the future my child would have to inhabit, and realizing that bitching about it might possibly not be the most constructive strategy.

Related Characters: Sarah O’Rourke (speaker), Andrew O’Rourke, Lawrence Osborn
Page Number: 151
Explanation and Analysis:

“I’ve spent two years denying what happened on that beach. Ignoring it, letting it fester. That’s what Andrew did too, and it killed him in the end. I’m not going to let it kill me and Charlie.”

Related Characters: Sarah O’Rourke (speaker), Little Bee, Andrew O’Rourke, Charlie O’Rourke / “Batman”, Lawrence Osborn
Page Number: 172
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter Seven Quotes

The gasoline flowing through the pump made a high-pitched sound, as if the screaming of my family was still dissolved in it. The nozzle of the gasoline hose went right inside the fuel tank of Sarah’s car, so that the transfer of the fluid was hidden.

Related Characters: Little Bee (speaker), Sarah O’Rourke
Page Number: 181
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter Eight Quotes

I closed my eyes and listened to the hum of the fluorescent lights, the buzzing of the fax machines, and the fluid chatter of the editorial girls on their phones to fashion houses. It all seemed suddenly insane, like wearing a little green bikini to an African war.

Related Characters: Sarah O’Rourke (speaker), Little Bee
Page Number: 201
Explanation and Analysis:

“Save [Little Bee] and there’s a whole world of them behind her. A whole swarm of Little Bees, coming here to feed.”

“Or to pollinate.”

Related Characters: Sarah O’Rourke (speaker), Lawrence Osborn (speaker), Little Bee
Page Number: 207
Explanation and Analysis:

“You start off thinking you can kill all the baddies and save the world. Then you get a little bit older, maybe Little Bee’s age, and you realize that some of the world’s badness is inside you, that maybe you’re part of it. And then you get a little bit older still, and a bit more comfortable, and you start wondering if the badness you’ve seen in yourself is really all that bad at all.”

Related Characters: Sarah O’Rourke (speaker), Little Bee, Charlie O’Rourke / “Batman”
Page Number: 209
Explanation and Analysis: