Rite of Passage in Empire Of The Sun Essay

Empire of the Sun

Empire of the sun is a rites of passage novel about James Ballards life in Shanghai during the Japanese invasion in the 1940s. It describes James life from how he changes from a posh and upper-class expatriate to becoming a lonely Shanghai roamer, and his time at Lunghua camp at which his views of the four main nations in the book (England, Japan, China and America) change completely.

Ballard presents the English at the beginning of the novel as a superpower, posh and rich. We know this because Yang their chauffer drives a green Packard, which is a expensive and flash car and they have lots of servants who, in James (Jamie to his family and close friends) imagination are just pieces of furniture, and gardeners who mind their own business passively stabbing at the grass. Despite the English being in their ivory tower and thinking themselves of a higher class than the helpless Chinese, they still are concerned about the Japanese moving closer and closer to Shanghai. Before Dr Lockwoods party Jamies father knelt by the radiogram in his pirate costume listening to the regular war update. While Shanghai is on the brink of being overrun and captured by the Japanese the English still manage to fit in a few glasses of whiskey and soda and a fancy dress party, but even at the party the main focus for most people is listening to the war update on Dr Lockwoods short-wave radio. Eventually the Japanese take control of Shanghai and Jamie is separated from his parents. In the heart of Shanghai, all alone, Jamie meets two American sailors, Frank and Basie. They rename him Jim, A new name for a new life. Jim needs food and is willing to do anything in order to stay alive. The only way he can stay alive is to stick around with Frank and Basie. As the story goes on Jim has less and less respect for the English because they do not seem to prioritise the right things for instance they would prefer to suffer from chronic dysentery rather than make the effort of boiling the water because they are used to having things done for them by servants. Also the English had theatrical groups rather than helping the ill and dying people in the hospital. These are just some of the reasons that Jim lost respect for the English over the course of his imprisonment at Lunghua and eventually moving to the American quarters, where they did things properly and were prepared to do what it takes to stay alive.

The helpless and passive Chinese do nothing to help themselves in the book, being this passive with no personal drive or momentum to get out and oppose the people who put them in such bad positions; to build a life that is worthwhile living for creates the effect that they live just to die. We are invited to paint this morbid picture in our mind when he describes that the Chinese knew from birth, that they were all as good as dead anyway, and that it was self-deluding to believe otherwise. When the Chinese deal with the superpowers they let them do what they want and dont even bat an eyelid at them. This just re-iterates how easily they get controlled and overpowered by other nations and important therefore rich individuals. When the Japanese soldiers killed the rickshaw coolie he does not put up a fight he just lay the4re and let the soldiers kill him. The coolie knelt on the groundamong the grains of riceas the blood ran from his back and formed a pool around his knees. The Chinese just accepted they are inferior to the Japanese and English so dont bother to put up a fight or retaliate. But everybody knows that one day China will punish the rest of the world, and take a frightening revenge.

Ballard invites us to believe that the Japanese patiently wait for their chance to attack which in Jims mind scares him more than the thought of being killed or tortured by them. There is an eerie sense towards the Japanese which Jim doesnt like, because they kill for no reason for instance when the Chinese coolie is stabbed and left o die on the floor. Jim has great respect for the Japanese pilots and their planes. He names every Japanese plane that flies over his head. When the war starts the turn the wrong way for the Japanese they take their anger out on the prisoners by reducing the amount of potatoes for the prisoners to eat. As the war moved through its closing year the Japanese had become unsettled and dangerous. But despite all this Jim still wants to join the Japanese Air Force rather than the RAF, Im going to join the Japanese Air Force. He wants to do this because his only impression of the British is that they are pathetic and cannot care for themselves without servants whereas the Japanese show might and power, of course all eleven year old boys take the side of the most powerful, which entices him towards their side. Even when the war is over he still has respect for the Japanese.

The Americans are Jims lifeline. When he is picked up by Basie and Frank he is willing to do whatever it takes to stay alive and find his parents, despite knowing that they want to get rid of him, but when Jim is in Lunghua camp he is told to stick around with Basie by Dr Ransome because he is a survivor. Its a good thing that youre friends with Basie. Hes a survivorwars exist for people like Basie. This shows that Basie can handle and even thrive from the bad situations which Jim respected him for. Jim finds out that after spending a few weeks in the camp the English have completely different mind sets to survive to survive than the Americans, we know this because Ballard informs us that the English sit around all day drinking cholera infested water while the Americans, even those with malaria, take life as it comes and do what it takes to stay alive. In Steven Spielbergs film Empire of the Sun Jim sneaks out of the perimeter o the camp to place two pheasant traps and puts his life on the line, just to earn the right to live in the American dormitory thus shows that he has ultimate respect for them, so much so that he becomes obsessed by everything American. Even when they gamble with his life he just accepts it as American humour of a most special kind. By the end of the text Jims favourite nation (has most respect for) is most defiantly the Americans, especially after the American air raid on Lunghua airfield, where he sees the Mustangs and B-29s, one of the pilots from a Mustang waves at him as he salutes him.

In conclusion Jim loses all respect for the English people, whom which he previously had a lot for, due to his experiences at Lunghua camp. The Chinese were never considered as proper people in his mind because all throughout the novel they are minorities in society and passive towards all other nations, letting them roam free in their country. Jim has the utmost respect for the Japanese in the beginning whereas by the end he still admires them but not as much due to harsh things being enforced on him, and his fellow prison mates, in Lunghua camp. He also admired the Japanese kamikaze pilots who were prepared to give up their lives even though they knew the war was lost. Jim is unsure about the Americans at first when he meets Frank and Basie but grows to love them and their pleasant but entertaining company. He would not be the same person at the end of the war if he had never met Basie. Personally, this quote sums up Jims opinion of the nationalities: All in all, Jim felt, he Americans were the best company, not as strange and challenging as the Japanese, but far superior to the morose and complicated British.