TTT: Literary Orphans

Top Ten Tuesday: Literary Orphans

It is hard not to root for literary orphans, they are all alone in the world, trying to make their way without the support of parents. Here are a few of my favorites:

Harry Potter in the series by J.K. Rowling. Harry is probably the most famous orphan alive.😊 

Pip in Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. Dickens was acutely aware the world he lived in wasn't fair to impoverished children. He writes about another very famous orphan in another book, Oliver Twist. 

Demon Copperhead in a book by the same name by Barbara Kingsolver. This modern day orphan is fashioned after another Dickens orphan: David Copperfield.

Huck Finn in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Unlike most of the other literary orphans, Huck Finn doesn't seem to mind being on his own and free after his alcoholic father abandons him. Don't forget about another Mark Twain orphan: Tom Sawyer.

Danny and Maeve Conroy in The Dutch House by Ann Patchett. These siblings think they are orphans when their father dies and their step-mother throws them out of the house. Later we learn they aren't orphans, but their reliance on one another is absolute by that time.

Jane Eyre in Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. The sense of isolation and being alone in the world is very palpable in this story about a famous orphan. 

Rill, Camillia, Gabby, Lark, and Fern Foss. A fictional story, Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate, about five siblings stolen in a real-life scandal involving the Tennessee Home Society Orphanage in the 1930s. Rill, the oldest, tries her darndest to hold her family together.

Anne Shirley in Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery. Anne has to be one of the most loving characters in all of literature.

Pak Jun Do, who believes he is The Orphan Master's Son, a book by Adam Johnson set in North Korea. Orphans are all led to believe they are related to famous and important people. Pak Jun Do learns the truth late in the novel.

Odie and his brother Albert  O'Banion, and several friends in This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger reminds us that "Found Family" is often just as important to us as our original family.

-Anne