Little Bee by Chris Cleave is a touching story of intercultural communication, influencing the readers’ views concerning the racial and social prejudices. The author is aimed at falsifying the theories, representing the universal character of Western culture, considering it to be the highest peak of the world civilization.
The moral strength and rich inner world of Little Bee, a girl from Africa, one of the novel protagonists, denies Edward Taylor’s theory of three levels of development in every culture. This scientist regarded the western civilization to be the third and highest stage in the hierarchy of the world civilizations, preceded by the stages of savagery and barbarism. But on one hand this classification appears to be primitive, as it is impossible to refer the Nigerians to any of these stages, on the other hand it is extreme.
The girl survives the processes of enculturation, which means getting accustomed and gradual transition to the norms of the new society, with dignity, though a sixteen-year-old Nigerian considers these processes meaningless and implying her personal degradation. The fact, that Little Bee regards her native tongue and traditions of her native country to be more developed and expressive, could be explained by her subjectivism and the feelings of the girl.
This attitude could also be interpreted as the girl’s ethnocentrism, the person’s belief that his/her ethnicity is superior. But attempting to part with the narrow-mindedness, the author managed to provide evidence that the girl’s emotions result from her sincere love of her motherland.
The views of the girl leave behind the views of her peers and her life position and wisdom are remarkable and can not be considered to be the views of a barbarian girl. She is smart and her way of thinking and a talent of drawing the parallels are impressive. In the first chapter the girl explains her feelings as to necessity of learning the new language and uses the unexpected, felicitous comparisons: “Learning the Queen’s English is like scrubbing off the bright red varnish from your toe nails, the morning after a dance. It takes a long time and there is always a little bit left at the end” (p. 7).
Using this simile of the English language to the red nail varnish, Little Bee introduces the readers into her picture of life, as the young girl is expected to enjoy her life dancing or communicating with her friends, she would be very surprised at the fact that she used this comparison to describe her attitude to her enculturation. But her life circumstances made her struggle against the difficulties, and intentionally or sometimes unintentionally become assimilated by the unfamiliar culture of the new country. Assimilation of the immigrants presupposes their acceptance of the standards of the dominant culture, obtaining the standards of behavior result in behavioral assimilation or acculturation, while the structural assimilation or social assimilation implies the acceptance of one’s social status and role in the new society, the rile of an immigrant in this case.
Describing the process of the girl’s acculturation, the author emphasizes that some of the characteristics of the new standards were negative. For example, the girl is astonished at the photos of the half-naked models in the magazines and hesitates whether this standard should be accepted.
Her inner conflict results in her deny coming up with the expectations of the society as she takes pains in order not to look pretty. Wearing loose clothes the girl expressed her protest against the generally accepted norms and standards; it means that the girl’s social assimilation was complicated by her inner controversy and doubts, characteristic of all the teenagers. Touching upon the concepts of ethnocentrism, enculturation, social and behavioral assimilation, the author proves the inconsistency of Taylor’s theory of the superior western culture, demonstrating that the cultural achievements can not be measured by certain standards and frames, while every country has its unique culture.
Another author’s intention was to deny the theory of universal western civilization, suiting all the other civilizations. This theory is connected with the previous one, proclaiming the western culture to be the highest stage of development implying all the necessary democratic freedoms. But several representatives of the western culture in the novel appeared to be the barbarians judging from their behavior and the level of development. During the first meeting of Little Bee and Sarah Summers on the Nigerian beach several representatives of the western culture were going to kill Little Bee and her sister as they were ordered to kill the native inhabitants and clear the country for the further development of the oil industry.
This policy does not correspond to the democratic freedoms of the western culture, which it was supposed to guarantee according to the theory. The concept of equality, according to which all the members of the society are to have equal rights and to be protected by the general rules, looses its sense when the population is to be killed because of the possible economic profits. The concept of the human rights or the universal values, according to which all people may leave in safety and be free, is distorted by the racial prejudices, according to which the representatives of one ethnicity have the right to decide the fortunes of the others and find some excuses for it.
There is no value prior to the human life, the culture which ignores this basic principle may not claim to be universal. Chris Cleave provides the complex view of the society and his main characters are ready to sacrifice for the sake of the universal values. Sarah and her husband observed the horrific scene and even were involved into it. The mercenaries, who were going to kill the innocent kids, agree to spare them on the condition that the man cuts one of his fingers. Sarah cuts her finger, while her husband is unable for this act. Thus on the Nigerian beach one representative of the western culture made another cut her finger for hack value, as there was no crucial need to do it but for the sadistic inclinations of the mercenary.
It proves that, fortunately, one more concept of the western culture – individualism, according to which every person considers the personal interests to be prior to the interests of the rest of the community failed to be true and it saved the girls’ lives. On the other hand, the description of this situation proves that the racial prejudices are meaningless and representatives of the same culture may be in conflict due to the differences in their views.
The author depicts not the opposition of representatives of the different races or cultures but good and bad people and demonstrates that in some situation when the human life is at stake all the rest principles and concepts are pushed to the sidelines. Facing mortal danger the characters of the novel act according to their moral values, not correspondingly to their racial origin or culture heritage of their country. The author denied the theory of universal character of the western culture, emphasizing the differences in the pictures of life and attitude to its main concepts of different representatives.
Instead of measuring the human qualities in accordance to their ethnical origin, the author uses other categories assessing his characters. Sahra’s son represents the model of the child’s categorization of different events and people, differentiating between positive and negative, dividing the data into certain groups aiming to make a system and include the current events into the picture of life. There is a theory of mental efforts economy, according to which the people divide all the information into the subgroups, form certain opinions as to the objects belonging to the subgroups and treat all the subgroup according to these beliefs.
Sahra’s son is a striking example of the categorization patterns implementation, but in fact all the characters try to divide the picture of the world into black and white and all the people into good and bad categories. Sahra’s son does not put off the mask of a Batman, the boy has the distorted perception and the problems with self-identification. The child is assured that Batman is strong and good and trying to imitate the model, he refuses to put off the mask and the suit of his favorite hero.
The concept of the distorted perception, when the person is influenced by certain ideas and subjective views and it prevents him/her from accepting the real picture of life is expressed in the Sahra’s statement as to her attitude to her husband:
Whenever I need to stop and remind myself how much I once loved Andrew, I only need to think about this. That the ocean covers seven tenths of the earth’s surface, and yet my husband could make me not notice it. That is how big he was for me (p. 98).
After certain events in her life the woman realizes that her perception was distorted due to her feelings, though her words are figurative, the ocean covering the earth’s surface symbolizes the laws of nature, the obvious facts, which she did not notice. In the course of intercultural communication, the communication between the representatives of different cultures, in this novel it was communication between Little Bee and Sahra, resulted in their mutual help and support.
Sharing their experience and life views they influenced each other and it helped them to see the situations from another angle of view. Description of the small boy’s efforts to categorize the surrounding world may be exaggeration, but it reflects the way in which the adults form their picture of life and proves that with the rare exceptions, the theory of minimizing mental efforts is meaningful.
Another theory connected with the process of the immigrants’ assimilation developed in the novel is the view representing the culture as the tool, supporting the person’s adjustment to the every day problems. In other words, the cultural norms help the citizens to choose the appropriate model of behavior in the typical situations, reducing the stress of immigrants’ status. Little Bee faced the problems of racial prejudices when she was at the detention centre for immigrants. It is terribly difficult for a girl in the country where she knows only Sahra and her husband to choose the model of behavior in accordance with her current social status.
The concept of racism, according to which people of certain racial origin are discriminated by the others, was previously unknown to the girl. She dreams of returning to her native land and telling the story of her discrimination in the western country as a nightmare to her friends. Little Bee realizes that learning the language of the queen and the rules of the country will help her to become the member of this society.
The girl learns English reading the newspapers, her decision to obtain the standards of the culture in order to survive was rather intuitive. But it was the decision which saved her. The episode, when she calls to the taxi service and misinterprets the question where she comes from, is very symbolic. Little Bee thinks that the question concerns her origin, while the operator means the place from which the taxi is to take her. On one hand, being in the new situation, the child does not know what its standards are, but she does not give up and asks the surrounding people the name of the place. In this episode the contrast between Little Bee and her peers, not making attempts to obtain the new standards is obvious.
On the other hand, the girl’s interpretation of the operator’s question demonstrates that she is already influenced by the racial prejudices and thinks that every one is interested in her origin. The concept of bias, the society views influenced by the prejudices, is reflected in the attitude of the society to the girl, unknown to her previously, at last they become an integral part of her picture of life. The situations described by the author are the evidence for the theory of significant role of culture in the process of adjustment of the person to the new circumstances.
Little Bee by Chris Cleave illuminates the questions of the intercultural communication and helps the readers to part with the racial prejudices, leading to the triumph of the universal values in the novel.
Reference
Cleave, C. (2009) Little Bee: A Novel. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.