Name :Hau Daria TeodoraSchool: Colegiul National Ienachita VacarescuTeacher: Bucur Magdalena

ORPHANS OF THE UNIVERSE

I chose the “orphan” topic for my essay because it took my eyes and impressed me with the genitive structure from the title “ of the Universe”. We also associate this term with the fact that they(the children) don’t belong to anyone. Well, this title places the orphans all over the world in someone’s care. And that loving parent is the Universe.

The Oraphans by Thomas Faed

The 19th century is also known as the romantic century and it was born as a response to the inflexible rules of his predecesor – the classicism. Literature was one of the art branches that was touched by its strong influence. In contrast to the main characteristics of classicism – characters choosen from the middle and upper classes of the society gifted with special features and noble virtues, the formal and strict rules of writing and previsible action – the romantism encourages writes to explore a unique vision of the world, a more veridical and unperfect one. Romantic novelists embrace the construction of different characters, less fortunate, allowing their manner of being to be dictated by flaws and wicknesses. In literature, all of these features introduced romantic specific themes like the solitude, hatered against the society and its unfairness or, a very common one, the orphan.

Portrait of Two Children by George Henry Harlow

The orphan is a character out of place and origin, who is forced to make his own shelter in the world around without any parental support. This human condition offers the author a background of endless posibilities to create unique plots with various types of characters. The orphan theme provided a base for some of the most exquisite literary creations where english novelists played a massive role in, Emily Bronte, Charlotte Bronte, Charles Dickens, Lord Byron and Walter Scott being just some of them.

Emily Brontë Charles Dickens

Charlote Brontë

Charles Dickens outlines Oliver Twist, one of the most beloved orphans in romantic literature. From the first very pages of the story, one can easily notice that Oliver Twist is not going to enjoy the faith generosity. He spends the first years of his childhood at a workhouse being brought up with little food and few comforts. During his journey to London, he meets Jack Dawkins and Charley Bates who manage to inflitrate Oliver in Fagin’s criminal actions without him knowing it. He discovers too late that the boys didn’t make wallets and handkerchiefs and were actually stealing pockets. In a renewed attempt to draw Oliver into a life of crime, Fagin forces him to participate in a burglary. It goes wrong and the boy is shot in his arm but ends up under the care of the people he was supposed to rob. Oliver Twist is an example of inncocence despite the criminal company he encounters.

Another story that frames the hard work children without parents are put to, is Jane Eyre by  Charlotte Brontë. Jane Eyre is barely cared for by her unloving aunt, and is tormented by her cousins. She is then packed off to the Lowood School, where most of the pupils are similarly abandoned. After six years as a student and two as a teacher, Jane decides to leave Lowood and become a governess at Thornfield Hall where she falls in love with  Mr. Rochester, the owner of the house.  Refusing to go against her principles by getting married with him and despite her love for him, Jane leaves Thornfield in the middle of the night. She decides to become a misionary in India but she hears that Mr. Rochester's wife set the house on fire and committed suicide by jumping from the roof. In his rescue attempts, Mr. Rochester lost a hand and his eyesight.  Jane reunites with him and he recovers enough sight to see their first-born son.

Wuthering Heights, Emily’s Brontë novel, shows a different side of the „orphan” . Heatchliff , a dark-skinned boy is raised by the Earnshaw family and develops a great relationship with his sister, Catherine. As she matures into her young teens, however, Catherine grows close to Edgar Linton. A bitter Heathcliff leaves Wuthering Heights upon overhearing her saying that it would degrade her and while away, by means unknown, makes his fortune. He turns back cruel and vindicative, taking advantage of Edgar Linton's sister Isabella and forcing his sickly son to marry Catherine’s Earnshaw’s daughter Caty in order to inherit the property. In the end he dies wishing to be burried next to Catherine.

Concluding, the theme of the orphan in literature bordeans the horizon to various destinies. These stories succeeded in changing the preconception that seeded in peorple’s vision concerning the role and the value of the orphan in the world. The up-mentioned characters prove that compassion is not the only feeling people should feel about the “deprived” children. One who limits his empathy to pitty as the only emotion, in fact deprives himself from a larger inner experience.