When We Had Wings

One of the novel’s three protagonists, Eleanor Lindstrom is a blond-haired, blue-eyed “twenty-three-year-old Midwesterner who had never seen the ocean before” (1). She conveys innocence and a strong sense of right and wrong. Eleanor’s decision to leave her job as a nurse at Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis to join the Navy Nurse Corps is motivated by embarrassment and heartbreak. Too proud and hurt to stay in Silver Lake after confessing her love for her community’s new pastor, John Olson, she nonetheless can’t stop thinking about him throughout her service and imprisonment. Eleanor views her continuing feelings for John as a weakness, but this illustrates the steadfastness of her character. When Eleanor reunites with John, who waited for her all along, it functions not just as a happy ending but as a way of reinforcing the value of her honesty and steadfast affection.

Eleanor’s reactions to the war demonstrate the extent to which her Midwestern upbringing instilled in her a strict code of honor, a belief in following the rules, and a measure of innocence about the cruelty humans are capable of. This is apparent in her shock and horror at “the thought that a Japanese commandant could so cavalierly encourage the deaths of so many sick people, as if they were little more than chattel” (122); throughout the novel, the willing mistreatment of others never ceases to appall her.