Mrs. Beatrice Rumfoord/Bee Character Analysis

Beatrice, an elegant but haughty woman, is Winston Niles Rumfoord’s wife. She hates him, and her hatred intensifies after Winston enters the chrono-synclastic infundibulum and begins delivering prophecies about the future. Beatrice is horrified by her husband’s predictions (particularly the one about Beatrice and Malachi Constant living on the planet Titan and having a son together). She calls these prophecies his “omniscient bullying” and is desperate to believe that she is “mistress of her own fate.” Beautiful, intelligent, and charming, Beatrice is a talented poet who has published one book of poems, Between Timid and Timbuktu. She ends up being conscripted into the Martian Army. During the journey to Mars, Constant rapes Beatrice without realizing her identity. As a result, Beatrice becomes pregnant with their son, Chrono. On Mars, she has her memory wiped and is known as Bee. She teaches the Schliemann Breathing Technique (a method that enables humans to more easily breathe in Mars’s low-oxygen environment) to new army recruits. Bee manages to survive the Martian-Earthling war when she and Chrono’s spaceship crashes into the Amazon. She is taken to Titan along with Chrono and Constant, where she goes somewhat insane and writes a book entitled The True Purpose of Life in the Solar System. She dies peacefully at the age of 74.