Empire of the Sun: Nationalities Essay

Empire of the sun is a rites of passage novel about James Ballards life in Shanghai during the Japanese intrusion 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 summer 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 greet this because Yang their chauffer drives a green Packard, which is a expensive and flash car and they have lucks of servants who, in James (Jamie to his family and close friends) imagination are rightful(prenominal) pieces of furniture, and gardeners who oral sex their own business passively stabbing at the grass. Despite the English macrocosm in their ivory tower and thinking themselves of a high class than the helpless Chinese, they still are concerned about the Japanese moving closer and closer to Shanghai. Before Dr Lockwoods party Jamies start out 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, just 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 retort 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 raw(a) 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 get to around with Frank and Basie.As the story goes on Jim has less and less note for the English because they do not seem to prioritise the right things for type they would prefer to suffer from chronic dysentery rath er than make the effort of boiling the water because they are used to having things done for them by servants. Also the English had internal representation 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 immurement 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 horrid 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 earnest as dead anyway, and that it was self-deluding to believe otherwise. When the Chinese de al 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 cooly 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 fucks that one day China will punish the balance 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 wing 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 unloose 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 completion 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 head 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 an d Frank he is willing to do whatever it takes to stay alive and find his parents, despite perspicacious that they want to get rid of him, besides 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 consider 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 Ame rican dormitory thus shows that he has ultimate respect for them, so much so that he becomes obsess 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 fraternity 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 alike 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 adduce 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 prime(prenominal) to the morose and complicated British.