When We Had Wings

Penny’s necklace, “a gold chain with a small pendant at the bottom in the form of a gold nugget” (59), was a graduation present from her father and thematically symbolizes The Power of Hope and Personal Connection. A connection to her parents, it’s the only jewelry she wears, and she never takes it off.

When Lieutenant Akibo takes the necklace off her and puts it around his own neck, saying the chain is now his and adding, “And before long, you will be as well” (119). It represents his view of her as something he can possess. Every time she sees him touching the chain, it’s a reminder of how deeply removed Penny is from her connection to home and that the prisoners are seen as less than human.

When Penny takes the necklace back from Akibo after he’s shot, stating, “I’d like the record to show that I owe you nothing” (323), she takes her power and her humanity back from him. Later, when she passes the necklace on to Newt while saying goodbye, the symbolism of the necklace comes full circle: It signifies her love for Newt and their unbreakable connection.

The motif of promises threads throughout the characters’ relationships, providing implicit characterization and emphasizing the daily dangers they face. Under regular circumstances, the protagonists know they can reasonably expect people to keep their promises, but during war, when they’re uncertain who will live or day each day, a promise is a fragile thing. Promises represent obligation, duty, and hope; each woman is bound by the promises she makes, and each fulfills them, beginning with the promises they made when they signed up to be nurses. In this way, their dedication to nursing thematically represents The Untold Roles of Women in History as the nurses put aside their exhaustion, fear, and personal struggles to care for the sick and injured.

The novel further develops this motif through the promises that individuals make to one another, which thematically supports The Power of Hope and Personal Connection and The Nature of Loyalty, Grief, and Honor. This appears in each relationship: in Penny’s promise to keep Charley’s flag and his promise not to die as proof of his feelings for her; in Lita’s promise to get out of Bilibid Prison and keep herself safe, countered by her demand for Lon’s promise that “when the war is over, you’re going to come and find me” (226); and in David’s promise to “be careful” when Eleanor worries about what he’s doing to undermine Konishi at Los Baños, and her promise not to give up as he dies. The varying degrees to which the characters keep their promises depict the inability to control fate and the importance of the personal connections that allow people to maintain hope in the face of despair.