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Mirabelle McCullough / May Ling Chow
May Ling Chow’s adoptive parents, who have longed for a child for years. They rename May Ling “Mirabelle” and welcome her lovingly into their home—but before the adoption can go through, they are blindsided by Bebe Chow’s case for custody of her daughter. The McCulloughs, though loving parents and kind individuals, are hopelessly misguided and quite tone-deaf when it comes to raising their daughter with a knowledge of her cultural heritage. In order to appease the media and dodge questions of thoughtlessly assimilating their child, they buy Asian wall art and a stuffed panda for May Ling to play with. Though they eventually win the case, May Ling is taken from them by Bebe Chow, who returns to China with her child, effectively going off the grid and making a search impossible. At the end of the novel, they apply to adopt a baby from China, and take comfort in the fact that “coming from China, the odds of the baby’s family trying to regain custody are almost nil.”
Linda and Mark McCullough Quotes in Little Fires Everywhere
The Little Fires Everywhere quotes below are all either spoken by Linda and Mark McCullough or refer to Linda and Mark McCullough. 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:
).
Chapter 5
Quotes
“Listen to this dumbass question,” [Lexie] groaned, fishing the application from her bag. “Rewrite a famous story from a different perspective. For example, retell The Wizard of Oz from the point of view of the Wicked Witch.”
“How about a fairy tale,” Moody suggested. “‘Cinderella’ from the point of view of the stepsisters.”
“‘Little Red Riding Hood’ as told by the wolf,” Pearl suggested.
“Or ‘Rumplestiltskin,’” Lexie mused. “That miller’s daughter cheated him. He did all that spinning for her and she said she’d give him her baby and then she reneged. Maybe she’s the villain here. She shouldn’t have agreed to give up her baby in the first place, if she didn’t want to.”
“Well,” Mia put in suddenly. “Maybe she didn’t know what she was giving up. Maybe once she saw the baby she changed her mind. Don’t be too quick to judge.”
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Chapter 16
Quotes
It came, over and over, down to this: What made someone a mother? Was it biology alone, or was it love?
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For [Mrs. Richardson] it was simple: Bebe Chow had been a poor mother; Linda McCullough had been a good one. One had followed the rules, and one had not. But the problem with rules, [Mr. Richardson] reflected, was that they implied a right way and a wrong way to do things. When, in fact, most of the time there were simply ways, none of them quite wrong or quite right, and nothing to tell you for sure which side of the line you stood on.
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Linda and Mark McCullough Quotes in Little Fires Everywhere
The Little Fires Everywhere quotes below are all either spoken by Linda and Mark McCullough or refer to Linda and Mark McCullough. 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:
).
Chapter 5
Quotes
“Listen to this dumbass question,” [Lexie] groaned, fishing the application from her bag. “Rewrite a famous story from a different perspective. For example, retell The Wizard of Oz from the point of view of the Wicked Witch.”
“How about a fairy tale,” Moody suggested. “‘Cinderella’ from the point of view of the stepsisters.”
“‘Little Red Riding Hood’ as told by the wolf,” Pearl suggested.
“Or ‘Rumplestiltskin,’” Lexie mused. “That miller’s daughter cheated him. He did all that spinning for her and she said she’d give him her baby and then she reneged. Maybe she’s the villain here. She shouldn’t have agreed to give up her baby in the first place, if she didn’t want to.”
“Well,” Mia put in suddenly. “Maybe she didn’t know what she was giving up. Maybe once she saw the baby she changed her mind. Don’t be too quick to judge.”
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Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 16
Quotes
It came, over and over, down to this: What made someone a mother? Was it biology alone, or was it love?
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Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
For [Mrs. Richardson] it was simple: Bebe Chow had been a poor mother; Linda McCullough had been a good one. One had followed the rules, and one had not. But the problem with rules, [Mr. Richardson] reflected, was that they implied a right way and a wrong way to do things. When, in fact, most of the time there were simply ways, none of them quite wrong or quite right, and nothing to tell you for sure which side of the line you stood on.
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