In terms of plot, there are mainly four types pertaining to detective fiction for the readers to choose from: The classical detective story (the whodunit), the
hard-boiled detective story, the (police) procedural, and the anti-detective story (Pyrhönen 21-22). In my opinion, Kazuo Ishiguro’s When We Were Orphans belongs to the last type, which will be dealt with in Chapter Three. To facilitate the later discussion, readers need to first familiarize themselves with the plot. Thus the plot of Kazuo Ishiguro’s When We Were Orphans is briefly summarized as follows. It tells of the journey of its protagonist, Christopher Banks, who not only strives to become a well-known detective but uncovers his most important secret in life—the reasons why his parents has been missing in China. Despite minor cases, Banks’s story of his parents’ case is unlike a typical detective narrative. This is because with the outbreak of the second Sino-Japanese War, Banks’s search for Yellow Snake results in
encountering Uncle Philip, who finally reveals the family scandal to Banks. The truth of the scandal destroys Banks’s fantasy of his parents’ case because his parents are not kidnapped due to their righteously fighting against the opium trade—in fact, his father ran away with his mistress and his mother was forced to become a war lord’s
maltreated concubine. The protagonist feels dejected and goes back to the UK after meeting his mother, who has gone mad and hardly recognizes him. The nonexistence of the crime is how the plot of the story diverges from the typical detective narrative.
The first type of the detective story is the classical detective story (the whodunit) that presents the crime, furnishes clues, then identifies the outlaw, and explains the solution. The text is usually depicted in incomplete manners so that the fragments of the evidence invite the readers to attach themselves to the analysis of the evildoing.
The detective and the police are in friendly competition in this division of the
detective narrative. Besides, they belong mostly to the upper of middle class and are educated people. Traditionally speaking, the whodunit describes the world which has been peaceful before the criminal intrusion. Consequently, to solve the crime is to restore the peaceful environment.
Secondly, the hard-boiled detective story stresses the importance of the incitement of the investigation to the detective. Generally speaking, the process of solving the crime becomes more and more complicated in the hard-boiled detective fiction. This is because it can get entangled in amorous affair and new-level trouble in the crime which is under study. Usually set in the corrupted urban surroundings, the sleuth has to ponder over moral matter, and single out what is the most critical matter he/she really has to deal with. The tension in this type of novel is greater than that in the whodunit. Therefore, the readers are more emotionally engaged in hard-boiled detective story. Unlike the classical detective story, the investigator in this type is the comparatively insignificant private detective or the police who tackles the problem of the extremes of society—the wealthiest and the poorest social groups. Therefore, both the underworld and the professional crimes are grappled with.
Thirdly, in the (police) procedural, some clues are hidden from the readers, yet the readers know who the wrongdoer is. In comparison, the police is rather ignorant of who the outlaw is. This makes the readers wonder whether or not the police will be able to solve the crime. The plot in this group keeps the readers in suspense by drawing a parallel between the exploration of the police and the evildoer’s crafting and doing the crime. The progression of the investigation is slow, drawing attention to the skills and competence in dealing with the crime. The readers of the (police) procedural could easily take notice of and find interest in positions of various policemen on the illegal matters. The story of this category is often presented in the
urban setting and depicted like an investigative report.
Fourthly, anti-detective story (or for that matter the metaphysical detective story, the postmodern detective story, and the analytic detective story) emphasizes the
textual techniques and narrative effects in the novel. The lawlessness is contemplated upon through the influence of the mysterious impression made by the complication of plot and formal design. As a matter of fact, the crime and the wrongdoing in
metaphysical detective story are secondary to the metanarrative or self-reflexive mode of the text. The complexity of the narrative form itself plays the pivotal role to be scrutinized. For example, the author of this group plays tricks on time and
interconnection among the plots. That is, the story might appear so complex that the readers can hardly make out what the story really means. Moreover, at times it does not provide a solution to the crime, or, the outcome of the detective’s efforts does not lend help to the coherence of the plot. Anti-detective story constantly parodies the conventions of the detective novel for the purpose of inviting the readers to partake in making up stories in the novel. While the readers participate in the creation of a logical wholeness of the plot, they may be driven to attend to the format and
characteristics of the detective genre. As Sweeney puts it, “[m]etaphysical detective stories—composed in equal parts of parody, paradox, epistemological allegory (nothing can be known with any certainty), and insoluble mystery—self-consciously question the very nature of reality” (4).17 The postmodern detective story looks “like a detective tale which cautions against reading like a detective” (Dettmar 156), the allowing more possibilities for the readers than other types of the detective fiction.
The thought-provoking part of the type of the story is its “meta-narrative processe reby
s of
17 Well-known examples provided by David Herman are Jorge Luis Borges’s “Death and the Compass” (1942), Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose (1980), Vladimir Nabokov’s Pale Fire (1962), and Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49 (1966) (120).
the
g creating and sustaining a sense of a crime and an investigation. The text itself now becomes the mystery to be solved . . . it uses the conventions and the settings of mainstream variants in order to textualize reality, drawing attention to its constructed nature” (Herman 120). As a result, this type of the detective narrative particularly requires readers’ participation in reading and interpreting the text, because their contribution to the text is usually “the major, often even the only, means of lendin coherence to the narrative” (120).
Morality and Guilt
The typical themes in the detective narrative often involve morality and guilt that make the narrative more intricate and action-packed. But in When We Were Orphans, Banks’s moral status of figuring out the crime first seems apparent but later becomes ambiguous. Aside from minor cases, he thinks that by dealing with his parents’ case, he is able to save the world. That is, people can trust him to rescue them from war. However, the story becomes even more complex because his parents are not as moral as he thinks and he cannot save the world, either.
The themes concerning the identification of guilt and the search for moral codes in examining the causes of criminal offense by the detective are those that make the detective fiction go beyond its formal structure. To Roger Caillois, it is the depiction of death, murder, and violence that fascinate the readers of conventional topics (“Detective” 12). There are usually suspects who appear to be capable of doing something illegal. And it is by placing the reliance on the detective’s intuition and ability of reasoning that the investigator is able to “evaluat[e] . . . who had sufficient cause to harm the victim” (Pyrhönen 17). The detective and the reader are placed at the same level so that they are both given “all clues” and shown the “most likely
suspect” (18). For the detective to determine whether the culprit is guilty or not, the benchmarks include not only the judicial but also the moral criteria. In particular, there are times when the question “Who done it?” is not equal to the inquiry about
“Who is guilty?” The investigator sometimes oscillates between legal matters and moral guilt. Ideally, if society functions within the laws, injustices should no longer exist. Nevertheless, morally speaking, there is frequently something justice leaves behind. At this time, the society in the detective fiction inclines to rely on the
detective, instead of the police. This is due to the fact that people in the detective story
“has to trust [the detectives] to be familiar with the law, understand the morals subtending communal life, know how to apply both codes, and how to balance the codes against on another in a situation of contradiction” (18). This is why detectives are believed or ought to be deemed a protector whom the common people in the story trust and confide in (Auden 15-24). In another situation, the detective has to use unlawful means to achieve the goal of solving the case. Borrowing from Martha Nussbaum’s term, there is a “picture,” a view of life which manifests itself that “from the reader’s perspective, the investigation is just as much as a probing into and a revelation of an investigator’s moral principles as it is a scrutiny of the suspects and their social context” (Pyrhönen 19). As a consequence, the moral or legal issues in the detective novel are presented by the author to be judged by the readers. They in turn shape readers’ concept of life. Their attitudes toward the themes of morality and law add another possibility to transcend the restriction of the detective novel’s form. In When We Were Orphans, Banks gives up his moral ideal due to the fact that his parents are not as upright as he imagines. He is also indirectly involved and benefits from the opium trade. Readers have to decide whether Banks himself is rightful enough or equal to his job as a detective. Banks abandons his dream of saving the
world because he does not think that people can still trust him and rely on him any more.