Empire of the Sun (Film adapted from Ballard)
How traumatized people handle changes?
Changes can be found throughout ‘Empire of the Sun’. The focus, war can be regarded as the most significant change, which has traumatized many characters. War is a circumstance that twists people’s lives, plunging them from stability to instability. When war ends, changes take place again as people are removed from instability to stability. War is evil as it deviates people’s attitude in dealing with changes, which contrasts to what they normally would do. In the following, I will examine how Jim, Basie, Mrs. Victor and Dr. Rawlins face the war. From them, we can see a range of different ways people handle changes.
As Jim is the dominant character, through him, we can have an insight into how war has created a drastic change to him and turned his world into a topsy-turvy. As quoted from the novel, ‘a peculiar space opened around him, which separated him from the secure world he had known before the war’. Before the war, he led a protected and comfortable life with parties, children magazines, amahs and love form parents. After the war broke out, his life was ruined. He was left alone and not being taken care of, and soon, food also became a problem. When war pushed him into a corner, like a mouse, Jim searched ways to survive in this adverse environment. Here, we can see that he makes adaptation. For instance, he became pragmatic and left his house to the streets to try his luck. Also, Jim went up to the Japanese and hoped through his ‘surrender’, he would be able to obtain some food.
