Little Bee - Dual Narrative

In this post I'm going to do a dual narrative analysis of Little Bee and talk about how I would include multicultural perspectives in to my teaching. 

Dual narrative analysis 

Little Bee is a novel written by Chris Cleave, it is a story about a young Nigerian girl who flees to England after her village is ruined and her family is killed. For two years, she lives in an immigration detention center, before she and three other girls are let out. Little Bee only knows two people in England and sets out to find them.

Narrative perspective

“A Narrative text relates a sequence of events” (Gamble, 2013:69). It means that the narrative keeps the story going. Little Bee is written with a dual narrative perspective, which means that there are two narratives from the two main characters point of view. The story is told through two different people’s eyes, in this case Little Bee and Sarah.

Character description

Sarah is a 31 year old magazine editor from Surrey, England. She is married to Andrew and have a little boy named Charlie. From the outside world, her life seems good, perfect even, but she has experienced stuff that most people won’t ever experience.

Little Bee is a young Nigerian girl, she has spent two years in a British immigration detention center, and that is the start of the story. She has experienced a lot of trauma with her family being killed and her village burned down. Her sister was brutally murdered by the same people who ruined her village, Little Bee didn’t watch it, but she heard it and she heard her sister praying.

Narrative perspective in Little Bee

Little Bee’s narrative starts in the immigration detention center. She talks about the things she has experienced in the detention center, the people she have met and the things she have learned. She’s telling about what would happen if she told the girls back home what she had experienced, how they would react. Little Bee’s narrative is showing her growing up, and dealing with being alone. We get to see how she is constantly scared “the men” will take her and bring her back to Nigeria.

Sarah’s narrative it starts on the same day as her husband’s funeral. It’s written about her life and her son, she mentions what Andrew were doing before he ended his life, what mood he was in, what mood she was in. Her narrative is filled with the sadness she feels, and the struggles and confusion she has to why Little Bee has arrived.

Influencing the story

Using different narratives gives two sides to the story. You get thoughts from Little Bee and you get thoughts from Sarah. You always see different sides to the same story. By using dual narrative in the book, the writer shows us how and who the character is through their own eyes and through the other persons eyes. The story doesn’t portray a one-sided character in which we only see a person through their own eyes, but we get to see the person through someone else’s eyes as well i. e. “Happiness for Sarah was a long future where she could live the life of her choice.” (Cleave, C., 2010:180) Little Bee described how she understood a conversation she had with Sarah; this is the way Little Bee sees Sarah, this is they way she understands her. While reading the book it sometimes feels like the narrator knows the opposite character better than the character knows themselves.

For this book, that is about two very different people, I think using a dual narrative helps the story a lot. If you had only read the story from Sarah’s side, you wouldn’t have been able to see Little Bee and vice versa. It is something about being able to portray both characters in a way that is relatable. This book opens up for exactly that.

Multicultural perspectives in English teaching

Multicultural Norway

“Multiculturalism advocates policies which seek to accommodate the different identities, values, and practices of both dominant and non-dominant cultural groups in culturally diverse society” (Murphy, 2012:6).

We are moving on to a multicultural society. Norway is taking in Refuges, asylum seekers and immigrants; this is something that will affect the Norwegian schools. In the English textbooks and workbooks pupils use today, we often see England, America and Australia as representative countries for English, both in the English-speaking world and in cultural aspects, and usually those three are the only three mentioned in the textbooks. However, with the way Norway in growing and changing, learning about American or British culture is not enough.

Multicultural perspectives in English teaching

Why would I include multicultural perspectives?

Multicultural education a process to make sure every student have an equal chance for academic success. By including multicultural perspectives from literature, we will give more children a chance to identify with their own world and different worlds. It will open doors where the teacher can teach about a variety of backgrounds and cultures. Multicultural perspectives in a Norwegian school that usually have a monoculture perspective will possible make the pupils more aware of themselves and others. Multicultural books is a way of teaching differences without the long, ongoing lectures about cultural differences.

How would I include multicultural perspectives?

Books, movies and music is sort of an international language. You find it everywhere. Every country have their music, most cultures or countries are represented in movies, and you can find stories everywhere.

If there is one thing that is spread around the world is music, with music comes both books and movies. Using music from different cultures can aspire pupils to want to learn more about a culture. There are so many different genre and sounds when it comes to music and every culture have something of their own. It is the same with movies. Disney has a collection of different movies from different parts of the world that could all be used in a teaching exercise.

Books (For this next part, I will include a full list of source at the bottom of the post.)

“Little Roja Riding Hood” written by Susan Middleton Elya. It is sort of a retelling of “Little Red Riding Hood”. Children knows the story, they know the concept of the story, this version will be easy to identify with.

“Looking Like Me” by Walter Dean Myers. An African American boy sees himself in a mirror. The book is about finding one self.

“Uncle Peter’s Amazing Chinese Wedding” by Lenore Look. It is about a traditional Chinese wedding.

“Shades of Black: A Celebration of Our Children” by Sandra L. Pinkney

“The people Could Fly: American Black Folktales” by Virginia Hamilton

“Indian Shoes” by Cynthia Smith.

All the books are from different cultures. The three last books contains a variety of stories the pupils can read. Using books like these, helps build a setting or a grounding where the pupils can start their learning. I would use the books as an opening for figuring out more about a culture, maybe someone is from one of the cultures, then I could use that in the teaching. These books could open for discussion about cultural aspects and language. Some pupils might relate to them and others will learn from them.

I think my answer on how I would include multicultural perspectives in my teaching would be to go outside of the English textbooks and actually find books that include different cultures. Use it for everything it is worth.

 by Ann Karoline Jessen

Sources

Gamble, N. (2013). Exploring Children`s Literature; Reading with Pleasure and Purpose. New Dehli: SAGE Publications.

Murphy, M. (2012) In defense of multiculturalism. In Multiculturalism A critical Introduction. Canada: Routledge Tylor and Francis Group.

Books picked from this page: http://ccbc.education.wisc.edu/books/detailListBooks.asp?idBookLists=42

Elya, Susan Middleton. Little Roja Riding Hood. Illustrated by Susan Guevara. Putnam, 2014. 32 pages. Ages 4-8

Look, Lenore. Uncle Peter's Amazing Chinese Wedding. Illustrated by Yumi Heo. Anne Schwartz / Atheneum, 2006. 32 pages. Ages 3-7

Pinkney, Sandra L. Shades of Black: A Celebration of Our Children. Illustrated by Myles Pinkney. Scholastic, 2000. 28 pages. Ages 3 – 11

Hamilton, Virginia. The People Could Fly: American Black Folktales. Illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon. Knopf, 1985.

Smith, Cynthia Leitich. Indian Shoes. Illustrated by Jim Madsen. HarperCollins, 2002. 66 pages. Ages 6 – 9

Myers, Walter Dean. Looking Like Me. Illustrated by Christopher Myers. Egmont, 2009. 32 pages. Ages 5 – 9