Nicholas Motamed

12/13/2016
4th period English 4

Little Bee by Chris Cleave is about a refugee from Nigeria who made her way to England

to find some old friends that could help her become an English citizen. As she adventures with

her friends, we get to know more about who she is and the difficulty immigrants go through. In

this book, Chris Cleave believes people have a moral responsibility to help others in their

communities, especially refugees and those with difficult life circumstances.

Moreover, moral responsibility is to help people be aware of the life that refugees

experience. For example, Sarah, the magazine editor, is speaking to Clarissa, the Features editor

about what sort of article to include in the months issue. Sarah desires “to do a feature on

refugees to the Uk” (203) because she believes the “problem will not go away anytime soon”

unless people do something about it. Sarah wants people to know about refugees because she has

seen it and wants people to understand refugees and help them. In addition, when Sarah’s

husband Andrew was buried in the cemetery with his coffin lowered into the hole, their son

Charlie jumped in the hole yelling and screaming for his dad to get out. Everyone just watches,

and no one tries to help Charlie get up and comfort him. Only Little Bee goes to help Charlie get

out and comfort him. Sarah thanked Little Bee for helping to get Charlie, and Little Bee responds

that “I did what anyone would of done” (44). Sarah counters her by saying that no one else did

try to help Charlie. Little Bee says “it is easier when you are from the outside” (44). It is because

Little Bee does not know the social rules in England’s society that she does not worry about

breaking them, making it easier for her to help comfort Charlie. Another piece of evidence is

when Sarah was speaking to Lawrence about how much she is helping Little Bee, and Lawrence
thinks she has already given enough to help Little Bee. Sarah believes that “ten percent is hardly

a wholehearted commitment” (208). Sarah thinks she is doing very little to help Little Bee but

Sarah believes that is not enough to help her because Little Bee is still a refugee. Little Bee still

needs help becoming a citizen so she doesn’t have to keep hiding. Lawrence however believes

Sarah has already done enough to try to help Little Bee such as cutting her finger and sheltering

her. Lawrence represents the people would do little to help refugees and people in need. Sarah

represents the people who want to do whatever they can to help refugees and anyone in need.

This shows that Chris Cleave believes people should help one another and their communities in

any way possible.

As shown by Sarah’s relationship with Little Bee and Little Bee’s relationship with

Charlie, it’s clear that social responsibility means lending a hand to people who need help in

your community, and especially those who are refugees. The author also shows that immigrants

play an important role in their communities, sometimes more than the native-born citizens like

the people like England in the book who were too self conscious to break their social rules and

help people. No matter what, people should do whatever they can to help anyone in need.