A Study of Identity Anxiety in When We Were Orphans from the Perspective of Spatial Mobility

Abstract

When We Were Orphans, seemingly a detective novel, is a poignant psychological thriller. Owing to such reasons as immigrant background and special experiences when young, the protagonist Christopher Banks shows a sort of sophisticated emotion in his behavior and language, which is per se the anxiety towards his identity. The paper takes spatial mobility as the perspective to analyze the identity anxiety of Banks, endeavoring to dig out the underlying reasons causing the anxiety. After detailed analysis with the theories including imaginative travel, new mobilities paradigm, mobile lives and so on, we find that spatial mobility, vague cultural identity, special experiences and other factors cause the identity anxiety of the protagonist. Spatial mobility accommodates well with the feature of depiction of the memories in different times and spaces and hereby provides the possibility for detailed analysis of the identity anxiety, which is of some reference value for the study of migrant literature.