close_game
close_game

Why are so many beloved literary characters orphans?

ByTeja Lele
Aug 29, 2024 04:46 PM IST

An embodiment of self improvement, orphan protagonists are instantly sympathetic. A look at why numerous popular stories and novels are steered by those who are bereft of parents

Cinderella. Paddington Bear. Mowgli. Peter Pan. Tom Sawyer. Pip. Jane Eyre. David Copperfield. Oliver Twist. Heathcliff. Pippi Longstocking. Heidi. Anne of Green Gables. Emily of New Moon. Bertie Wooster. Lyra. Pi Patel. Frodo. Eragon. Alex Rider. Liesel Meminger. Harry Potter.

From Cinderella to Harry Potter, for centuries, the plucky orphan has been a stock character. (Shutterstock)
From Cinderella to Harry Potter, for centuries, the plucky orphan has been a stock character. (Shutterstock)

For centuries, the plucky orphan has been a stock character, one as archetypal as Prince Charming in children’s literature. Countless classic stories and novels lay bare the trials, tribulations, and eventual triumphs of an orphaned child.

Eva König, in her study, The Orphan in Eighteenth-Century Fiction (2014), deduced that characters who have lost their parents became more prominent as literary figures in the course of the 19th century, “the century of the orphan”.

Oliver Twist, that pluckiest of orphans. (Shutterstock)
Oliver Twist, that pluckiest of orphans. (Shutterstock)

The trope has remained popular down the centuries, as seen in three of the most recent successful fantasy narratives George RR Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series, JK Rowling’s Harry Potter books, and Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy.

In an article in Publishers Weekly, children’s book editor Leila Sales wrote that dead parents are so much a part of middle-grade and teen fiction at this point, “it’s not even the ‘in’ thing. It’s not ‘au courant’ or ‘en vogue’. It’s just an accepted fact: kids in books are parentless”.

The benefit of a protagonist who’s an orphan is that the author has an instantly sympathetic character, one that can have an impressively strong character arc. Writer Liz Moore says the orphan character — especially one who is an orphan before the novel begins — comes “with a built-in problem, which leads to built-in conflict. [and] conflict is all”.

According to The Orphan in Fiction and Comics since the 19th Century, the proliferation of orphans in Victorian literature resulted from the fact that they could be used to negotiate a variety of social troubles and anxieties.

“The orphan as a figure of hope embodies widespread notions of self-improvement. Thus, it does not come as a particular surprise that this type of orphan can be found quite often in the genre of the bildungsroman, whose protagonists frequently embody the notion that success is based primarily on the individual’s intellectual and moral resources,” the authors write.

Adventure novels featuring orphans as protagonist also showcased a significant amount of optimism survived in adventure novels. “Even very young orphans like Kipling’s Mowgli continue to display an outstanding gift for surviving and even thriving in the most adverse circumstances. This also turns the orphaned protagonists of the adventure novel, which is typically set in colonies or regions that could be colonised, into representatives of imperialist thinking,” the study says.

The orphan, isolated from a traditional, nurturing family environment, is a manifestation of loneliness and vulnerability. Their circumstances never fail to trigger a strong, sympathetic reaction in readers, drawing them into the character’s journey. The deaths of the parents often create a shadowy backdrop, creating tension and raising the dramatic stakes.

A scene from the 1935 film based on Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield (Ralf Liebhold/Shutterstock)
A scene from the 1935 film based on Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield (Ralf Liebhold/Shutterstock)

Nina Auerbach, in Incarnations of the Orphan, writes that it’s an easy sentimental mistake to think of the orphan as fragile. “He seems composed of alternate layers of glass and steel, and sends out sting rays at those who try to adopt him. He first appears in the eighteen century as a slyly potent underground figure...But even the Romantic waif is brimming with a certain equivocal energy... His solitude energises him as a visionary artist, and silent schemer, his appearance of winsome fragility feeding into his power of survival,” she wrote , after a detailed analysis of Moll Flanders, Jane Eyre, Becky Sharp, Heathcliff, and Pip.

Stephen Chamberlain, author of the Cathar Grail Quest Saga, believes that being orphaned provides a handy springboard for fictional heroes, particularly those whose story needs them to reinvent themselves or cut links with their past.

“Orphans come without family commitments and can answer the call to adventure without the emotional mess of leaving anxious relatives behind. [It lets] the writer to create credible characters born with a secret identity that no one around them knows. That’s why many superheroes are orphaned characters,” he says.

Clearly, being orphaned helps move the plot, especially in quest and adventure stories. It is what lets Viserys Targaryen parcel off Daenerys (13 years old in the Game of Thrones book) to Khal Drogo, setting her on a quest that leads her to becoming the “Mother of Dragons” and changing the course of Westeros. It is why Harry decides to go deeper underground to look for Professor Quirrell (The Philosopher’s Stone) and the basilisk (Chamber of Secrets), ensuring that his best friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, stay away from as much danger as possible. And, it’s what lets many other characters enjoy the kind of freedom, free will, and offering of choices that children may aspire to, but not get.

A statue of Peter Pan in Kensington Garden, London. (Tony Baggett/Shutterstock)
A statue of Peter Pan in Kensington Garden, London. (Tony Baggett/Shutterstock)

When Wendy first meets Peter Pan, she is curious about his mother. But JM Barrie writes, “Not only had he no mother, but he had not the slightest desire to have one… Wendy, however, felt at once that she was in the presence of a tragedy.” These lines explain the irony of orphanhood, how it translates into a strange combination of bereavement and freedom on page.

Dr Eleanor Spencer-Regan, University of Melbourne, and Dr Jade Dillon Craig, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, in Family in Children’s and Young Adult Literature, argue that even in fantasy literature, it would “stretch a reader’s credulity too far to expect them to believe that a parent would allow their child to cavort with wolves and bears in the jungle, work as a teenage spy for MI5, rob priceless artworks from the great museums of Europe or fight the most powerful dark wizard of the age”.

“The only good parent in some children’s literature, it seems, is a dead parent, preferably one that died long enough ago to allow any inconvenient grief work to have been satisfactorily completed by their unfortunate offspring,” they write.

Apart from these “true” orphans, many characters are “functional orphans”, who Maria Nikolajeva defined in her 2002 study as “individuals that grow up as if they did not have any parents, although these may still be alive”. Think Lucy, Edmund, Susan and Peter, the central protagonists in many of Lewis’ Narnia stories, or Fatty and many of the children who go adventuring through Enid Blyton’s stories.

Then there were authors who chose to “liberate” child protagonists from parental supervision by sending them off to boarding school. These include the school stories of Angela Brazil (1906–1946); the Billy Bunter series by Charles Hamilton (1908–1940); Enid Blyton’s Malory Towers (1946–1951) and St Clare’s (1941–1945) series; and Anne Digby’s Trebizon series (1978–1994). In the mega-successful Harry Potter series (1997–2007), JK Rowling effectively combined two tropes: the orphan protagonist and the boarding school narrative.

The orphan also signifies the fearsome realities of death and the possibilities of isolation and abjection. “The more the orphan is othered as a result of fear, the more anxiety surrounds understandings of the orphan, and we come to see this child as enigmatic. Finally, as a result of this concentrated othering, we construct a figure that gains great strength and power, power that emerges from a character of unclear background who has survived great misfortune and loss,” writes Elizabeth Ann Crain in The Power of the Other: A Character Analysis of the Orphan Figure in Children’s Literature.

“In the mega-successful Harry Potter series (1997–2007), JK Rowling effectively combined two tropes: the orphan protagonist and the boarding school narrative.” (Film still)
“In the mega-successful Harry Potter series (1997–2007), JK Rowling effectively combined two tropes: the orphan protagonist and the boarding school narrative.” (Film still)

We see this in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, where Luna Lovegood reveals to Harry that, “The only people who can see thestrals …are people who have seen death.”

As Dumbledore says in Deathly Hallows, “…perhaps those who are best suited to power are those who have never sought it. Those who, like you, have leadership thrust upon them, and take up the mantle because they must, and find to their own surprise they wear it well.”

The “othering” of the orphan in many children’s books and comics, sometimes to an extreme, is what leads to the emergence of supernatural abilities. This is best showcased in superhero comics, where the motif of the orphan undergoes a radical change. As in 20th century fantasy, “superhero” characters are often created in the mould of the mythological hero and follow modified variants of the heroic journey described in the Campbellian monomyth. Their harrowing past often leads many of them, including Spiderman and Batman, to become crimefighters.

Orphans have no choice to be orphaned; it is out of their control. That’s one reason they make such admirable heroes: they are pulled by fate, often with resistance, into the hero’s arena.

“If Harry wasn’t an orphan, he wouldn’t have been such a powerful hero. [The] entire plot of the Harry Potter series would fall in on itself. This is the case for most orphan texts — the story hinges on the orphan status of the protagonist,” concludes Crain in The Power of the Other.

“Mary, in Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden, is bitter and lonely after her parents’ deaths, but by the end of the book, she’s surrounded by friends who love her. (Doodeez/Shutterstock)
“Mary, in Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden, is bitter and lonely after her parents’ deaths, but by the end of the book, she’s surrounded by friends who love her. (Doodeez/Shutterstock)

It’s also true that the trials of most orphans, who begin the story lonely and isolated, typically end in triumph, with the protagonist slowly finding their place. Mary, in Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden, is bitter and lonely after her parents’ deaths, but by the end of the book, she’s surrounded by friends who love her. The same goes for Harry Potter, who’s lonely even though living with family at the beginning of the series, and ends up forging familial bonds with his friends at Hogwarts.

Using orphans as the protagonist lets writers better contrast the characters’ lonely beginnings with their happy endings. The love they have for their new families is highlighted by the lack of love in their lives before.

And perhaps it’s because the orphan in children’s literature is mostly romanticised, othered, and abject, they find quick connection points with us. The orphan represents the common person and reflects common feelings of insecurity, which is why readers worldwide continue root for this underdog, this literary trope.

Teja Lele is an independent editor and writes on books, travel and lifestyle.

rec-icon Recommended Topics
Share this article
See More
SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
SHARE
Story Saved
Live Score
Saved Articles
Following
My Reads
Sign out
New Delhi 0C
Friday, February 07, 2025
Start 14 Days Free Trial Subscribe Now
Follow Us On