John Osborn When We Were Orphans Essay March 12, 2013

Kazuro Ishiguros novel When We Were Orphans centers around respected English detective Christopher Banks search for the truth regarding the disappearance of his parents. The narrative occurs in 1930 England, though Banks memories often link back to his childhood approximately fourteen years prior in Shanghai, China. Christopher, a young, prominent detective in London, rediscovers his past after impulsively divulging secrets from his childhood to his newfound confidante Sarah Hemmings. These memories lead him back to China and ultimately send him down the path to discovering his familys fate. Throughout the story, Ishiguro uses Christophers narrations to portray the themes of memory and displacement. As with many of his books, memory plays a large role in the development and general understanding of Ishiguros characters. Much of the narrative and backstory is told through Banks memories and it is these experiences that form the knowledge basis for the characters. Christopher thinks inwardly Over this past year, I have become increasingly preoccupied with my memories a preoccupation encouraged by [their] discovery though he had never intended to do so (Ishiguro, 70). More importantly however, is how recollections on a grand scale influence the dramatis personas and their responses to various personal stimuli. Akira, Banks childhood companion, tragically impoverished in adulthood by the Chinese opium trade, tells Banks When we nostalgic, we remember. A world better than this world we discover when we grow. We remember and wish good world come back again. So very important. Just now, I had dream. I was boy. Mother, Father, close to me in our house (Ishiguro, 282). Through Akira, Ishiguro describes the nature of Banks sentimentality and the influences bringing him back to Shanghai. The need for reconcilliation, however reaches even further to Sarah Hemmings, a beautiful public figure who was orphaned as well. She also is strongly affected by her childhood, twice reduced to tears in front of Christopher alone by her recollections. Sarah and Christopher bond over their mutual orphan status and Hemmings vulnerability pushes Banks further toward his quest to find his family. Another important facet of When We Were Orphans is the concept of displacement. At least once in the narrative, all the main characters experience some sense of unhappiness specifically regarding their current whereabouts. Banks wishes to return to Shanghai and to his parents, Hemmings longs for her mother and the afternoon bus rides she spent as a youth, and Akira, Banks childhood companion, wishes to escape Japan, where he was mercilessly ostracized for his foreignness by not only his fellow pupils, but by his teachers and even his relatives (Ishiguro, 94). Thus catalyzing his sense of displacement and forcing him to return to China. Sarah succombs to tears at the mention of her family, having lost her parents at a young age as well. When Banks offers to take her on a bus ride, she is ecstatic in the reliving of her childhood experience and the opportunity to remember her mother through action.

Ishiguro uses themes of memory and displacement to influence his protagonists. The heros reactions to their experiences speaks to their motives and morals, their different paths describing two different types of people indeed. Both elements play a large role in both the plot and the audiences understanding of Banks and Hemmings thought process and drive. Through the childhood trauma of being displaced, Banks trials in When We Were Orphans recognize humanitys need for understanding and reconcilliation.