Empire of the Sun

“Had his brain been damaged by too many war films?”

At the novel’s start, Jim reflects on all the newsreels and films about the war that he has seen. He wonders whether seeing continual horrors, such as the Rape of Nanking, are causing the bad dreams he has been having. On a deeper level, these films damage Jim’s perception of waking reality, often making him see reality in terms of a film set and a performance.

“Aircraft had always interested Jim, and especially the Japanese bombers that had devastated the Nantao and Hongkew districts of Shanghai in 1937.”

On his way to a Christmas party at his parents’ friends’ house, Jim plays with his balsa wood aircraft and thinks about his love of planes. On one level, this merely indicates an innocent and common childhood enthusiasm. However, Jim’s specific interest in the Japanese planes that bombed Shanghai, killing thousands, shows that something more sinister is at play. Jim has already started to identify with the indiscriminate violence and power of aerial warfare.

“Perhaps the spirit of the dead aviator had entered him, and the Japanese would join the war on the same side as the British?”

Jim has just returned from Hungjao Aerodrome where he sat in the cockpit of a crashed Japanese aircraft. Jim attributes a mystical significance to this event and feels a deep emotional bond with the now dead Japanese pilot. This contributes to Jim’s desire to join the Japanese air force and his confused—and severely mistaken—view that this could be compatible with fighting on the same side as the British.