WHEN WE WERE ORPHANS
=>REALIZATION OF LOSS AND ADULT AGONY <=
Protagonist narrator suffers discrimination and subordination since his childhood and this gives rise to a feeling of agony in it. As a result, he can’t think healthy. He uses different strategies to overcome negative feelings, but he can’t succeed it. He lives under the close control of the authority all about his life. Despite everything, he creates a field according to the himself thanks to Akira. Christopher gains a new perspective through friendship. Christopher and Akira support each other in hard times. They provide an opportunity to expose their suppressed feelings such as pain, fear or desire through playing. when he learns of his father's lost, he shocked and he tells: (You can see this part in page 65)
“My friend gave me a glare that rejected the intimacy implied by my tone, then spun his bicycle round. I felt tears coming, but remembering in time our long-standing feud about whether the English or Japanese cried easiest, I managed to stifle them. I thought again of telling him about my father's disappearance, and suddenly it seemed a hugely substantial reason not only for my having let him down, but for great self-pity on my part. I pictured the shock and shame that would transform Akira's face once I uttered the words: 'I couldn't come the other day because ... because my father's been kidnapped!' - but somehow I could not say it. Instead, I believe I simply turned and ran back to my house.”
When we look another part, we can see Christopher and Akira together while they playing a game. In page 64, Akira offers Christopher to speak in another language. It is language of games then including through a conversation like this:
' 'New game. About Christopher father. If you like.' I was taken aback and I do not recall what I said next. He came a few steps closer in the long grass and I saw he was looking at me almost tenderly. 'Yes.' he said. 'If you like, we play detective. We search for father. We rescue father.'
Additionally when he was a child, his friends Robert Thornton – Browne and Russel Stanton gave him a magnifying glass in his birthday.
He effects from these games and gifts and these become the beginning of detective life. They were the inspiration for Christopher.
They live in poor living conditions. Although this conditions, they provides a hope for the future owing to the their old good days. Akira said nostalgic and then he adds to support:
“ A world better than this world we discover when we grow. We remember and wish good world come back again.” (You can see in Page 161)
After so many years, Christopher comes back to Shanghai, and he comes face to face with the truth which was hidden from him all through his life. One of this truth, his father escaped with his mistress and he dies because of Typhoid in Singapur and in addition his mother was kidnapped by war land Wong Ku.
While in Shanghai, Christopher visits his home and atmosphere of the house takes him to his childhood. We can understand this situation from Christopher words in page 110.
“The ceiling was high and beamed. Beyond the diners, right at the back, was a kind of minstrels' gallery, from the rail of which hung a brace of paper lanterns. It was this section of the room that had drawn my gaze, and I now continued to stare past the table towards it, hardly hearing my host's words of welcome…. I found old memory coming back to me..”
On the another page, while they try to find Christopher’s family, they saw a little girl who is crying for her family because her family died. Akira doesn’t care the little girl, Christopher want to take care and then tries to calm down the little girl, because he remember his memories and he is also had same sadness. He says:
“Look, really, you're being awfully brave. I swear to you, whoever did all this, whoever did this ghastly thing, they won't escape justice. You may not know who I am, but as it happens, I'm... well, I'm just the person you want. I'll see to it they don't get away. Don't you worry, I'll... I'll...' I had been fumbling about in my jacket, but I now found my magnifying glass and showed it to her. 'Look, you see?”
In the other parts of book he also try to keep the promise given to girls.
Then he finds his mother (Diana) in a nursing home in Singapore. Christopher wants to ask his apologize because he feels guilty cause of loss of his parents, but hiss mother doesn’t recognize him until he say his nickname “puffin” In conclusion, Christopher worlds is established on lies, but he still manages to find truth. His friendship with Akira, his journey to Shanghai, finding little girl while crying and finding his mother, all of these recognizes to him his memories. He realize that he is the victim of his own curiosity. Finally, he encounters his lacks and he accepts them.
