Orphan
The Secret Garden, Spider-Man, Snow White, Tom Sawyer, His Dark Materials, Oliver Twist, The Wizard of Oz, Peter Pan, Batman, Hansel & Gretel, Annie, Harry Potter, Cinderella, Superman, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe…
The list goes on, but by now you’ve guessed the theme —
Awesome characters who happen to be orphans.
There’s a lot of them!
Which lends the question, why?
Why are so many beloved stories, orphan stories?
The literary orphan is one who stirs a sense of compassion and connection because everyone comes from someone. The entirety of humanity relates to needing parental figures.
We all fall into one of two categories:
You had parents to depend on in your most raw stages of development, and their presence (positive or negative) made you keenly aware of the essential significance of the parental role in your life.
—Or—
You didn’t have parental figures, and so their absence made you keenly aware of the essential significance of the parental role in your life.
Everyone can relate to the orphan character because the circumstances of the orphan speak to innate human needs.
Needs for dependence, for love, nurturing, protection, provision, structure, guidance, direction, on and on…
It’s every person’s earliest relationship, beginning before you take a breath and continuing long after a final breath is taken. If you’ve lost your parent (and likewise, if you’re a parent who has lost your child), you know there’s an insatiable void left behind.
(In the Zo’s Quest series, I used Zo and Quest being orphans as a literary metaphor for my own parent’s divorce.)
Regardless of circumstance, the parent/child bond never ends.
Readers inevitably associate with the orphan story because it speaks to our integral humanity.
And as the “bond never ends” implies, I’d argue that it goes beyond our physical care-givers.
We can (and many do!) live without parental guides. Everyone can recognize that the life of the orphan is itself triumph over adversity. Yet and still, the longing remains, even (and often) when we do have parents.
I believe the reason for this is that parents are meant to be a physical type. In other words, the role of the parent is to help us recognize the characteristics we need for something beyond the physical.
We are all humans after all, parents included, and humans inevitably hurt humans.
We all desire greater parents.
Even if we’re content with the ones we have.
It’s okay to admit that. It’s important to admit that because that recognition may be what leads us to pursue our greater parents.
In Zo’s Quest —Book One—, Zo is an orphan who is lost in a strange world, searching for her brother (the only family she’s ever known). It’s in her determined pursuit that she inevitably finds her greater parents.
There’s a greater parent who can be found.
I hope you don’t give up on your search. I hope you become the greatest parent you can be to any little one you are fortunate enough to influence. And I hope you find the greatest parent.