Empire of the Sun Essay

Empire of the Sun

Themes, Ideas, Characters, Analysis:

A pragmatic attitude can be the difference between life and death. James Graham is an important character in the text as he exposes some of the complexities of pragmatism such as demonstrating what pragmatism involves in a person and what a person must do to maintain it. This is important because if we want to manipulate pragmatism to our advantage, we need to know how to use it. James is the perfect person to show the complexities as he is easily manipulated and naive.

Jamie shows us how pragmatism can be adopted by anyone as it is a natural skill. Spielberg uses characterization to show this. Jamie is dressed in his private school uniform and is located singing in a British Cathedral, This shows Jamie as a boy who is protected by the wealth and pride of the British, and his family. This shows Jamie as a boy who has nothing to fear as he has his wealth, British morals and way of life to support him. Spielberg uses lighting on Jamie to show him being protected also by God. This and the British wealth is important because it shows that Jamie has no need for pragmatism in his current life as he is intelligent, British, wealthy, and protected. This shows us that anyone can become pragmatic as Jamie is the person least likely to need a pragmatic attitude however we see Jamie accept a pragmatic attitude later in the text. From this we can see that we often fall to a pragmatic attitude to survive and that pragmatism must be learned as Jamie has never needed pragmatism.

As development of Jim’s pragmatic attitude commences, Spielberg uses Jim to expose the complexities of pragmatism. He shows that there are various stages of pragmatism and how this can cause Jim to revert back to Jamie’s morals when the situation is beyond him mentally.

The first level of pragmatism Jamie expresses is him bowing to the sergeant whenever he is near him. This is interesting because before the war Jamie would not have needed to bow to anyone because he was wealthy. This is Jamie’s first mental change towards a pragmatic attitude.

Jim’s attitude also develops more shown by Jim stealing the food pales from the dead man so he doesn’t get so hungry. The boy feels little remorse for the dead man and feels this is an acceptable action.

Spielberg then shows us the next level of pragmatism, which is beyond Jim and so he reverts back to Jamie. Jamie not only refuses the dead women’s shoes but he fights for Baise not to take them.

This non pragmatic attitude shows Jim has reverted back to Jamie’s morals because he is not emotional mature enough to deal with this new level of pragmatism. The shoes from the women remind him of his own mother and prevent him from making the most of the situation. This shows that to be pragmatic to the highest level you need to let go of your old morals and in this case, Jamie’s British morals. How can Jamie take the dead mans pale, but not a dead women’s shoes. These different levels are what makes pragmatism complex. This teaches us that to be fully pragmatist; you have to be mentally strong as you need to be able to go against your previous morals.

Jim shows how elaborate pragmatism is by him fully embracing pragmatism, and completely changing as a result. Jim asks for the dead mans shoes. This is parallel scene Spielberg has used to refusing the dead women’s shoes at the start of the film.  This along side Jim having no sympathy for the man and only his shoes leads us to believe that Jim has fully embraced a pragmatic attitude. He does not care for the old man but only his shoes, when previously Jim cared about the dead mother. This shows Jims changes on a mental level but Jim has also changed physically showing us that to fully adapt to the situation you may need to change appearance and go with the current.

Spielberg now characterizes Jim as an American. He has lost his British morals, he is no longer polite and Jim tries hard to be American by wearing his American bomber jacket and developing an American accent. When Jim does his Latin homework, he is uninterested. Spielberg has used mise en scene using Latin to represent his old way of life and British morals, and Jim no longer cares about his Latin homework. Spielberg has shown us a completely different character from the British boy at the start of the film. This demonstrates how pragmatism affects people on a mental and physical level once they fully embrace it. The mental change for Jamie is the American lifestyle; the physical change is the bomber jacket and the accent. This shows complexities of pragmatism by showing how to become the utmost pragmatic you need to change on a mental and physical level to get what you want. Jamie changes his physical appearance to look more American as the Americans were getting what they wanted and seemed the most powerful in the camp. Jamie changes his mental attitude so he can get more food, and fit in with the Americans more.

Jim explores the complexities of pragmatism by showing how you have to be emotionally mature to be fully pragmatic. When Jim moves into the American dorm he has completely changed physically and almost completely mentally. He is told that he is “an American now” and therefore has to live up to the status quo of being American showing he has been accepted. Spielberg characterizes Jim as American as shown bythe American bomber jacket, American accent and the Hershey bar joke he stole from another American. This is then contradicted with Jim immediately putting up a picture of his fake parents on the wall of his room in the American dorm. This shows that Jim is still a boy and that Jim still needs his parents and is not ready to move into the American dorm. This new level of pragmatism is too much for him so he reverts to being Jamie. This shows that Jim can only be Jim for a short amount of time before reverting back to the British morals of Jamie. This shows you have to be emotionally mature to deal with the pragmatism.

Because Jim is not emotionally mature he can not sustain a pragmatic attitude and reverts back to his British morals. In the scene where Jamie moves back to the Victors, Spielberg shows us that Jim is still a boy and not mature, because he still loves planes and still has a picture of his fake parents. Jim can’t let go of Jamie and his British morals. Spielberg has used planes and his parent as symbols for that fact he is still and boy but they are also symbols for his old British life. Jim always has the plane with him, showing he can not let go of Jamie and his old British life. When Jim tried to be pragmatic he tries to fit in by adopting other people’s values and problems when he is really just a boy and should be worrying about them as he is not ready to deal with them. This explains why Jamie can’t fully adopt a pragmatic attitude as he is not ready for one, and therefore shows that you need to be sure of yourself and be mature to become fully pragmatic. 

It’s interesting to know about the complexities of pragmatism as we all have the ability to have a pragmatic and we all have the ability to adapt. By knowing how morals get in the way of your ability to adapt such as Jamie not being able to take the dead women’s shoes because it reminded him of his British mother and when actually taking the shoes would have benefited him more, we can see that some decisions that we make could be better for us if we were to not consider our morals. In this case the women was already dead so nobody was going to get hurt so Jamie should have let go of his morals, and taken the shoes but he couldn’t. This shows the difficulties and how intricate pragmatism is, by showing that decisions are not black and white. From this we can make better decisions as they may not be a clear cut as we may think.

This is also shown by Jim experiencing different levels of pragmatism. From Jamie being able to take the dead mans dinner pale but not the dead women’s shoes. Knowing that there are different levels to the decision we make we can better evaluate all the options knowing that we don’t always have one option and that there are many levels. Pragmatism is relevant to the modern world as every needs to adapt and people just like Jim are in prisons and POW camps so for them to know the limits and the drawback/advantages of being pragmatic would benefit them to make the most of their situation. The complexities of pragmatism can be extended to all of human kind. Humans have to adapt to stay alive just like any other animal and from learning about the complexities we can better adapt in times of trouble. Pragmatism is human nature, in the fast paced world today it’s still relevant and that’s why it’s important to study the complexities of it to better understand it.

Jim is an important character in the text because Spielberg uses him to show the complexities of pragmatism. He shows us pragmatism can be adopted by anyone no matter their background. Jim shows the different stages and levels of pragmatism and we see though Jim, the process of pragmatism and the mental and physical changes he goes through. His emotionally immaturity shows us why he can’t sustain pragmatism for long and ends up get rid of it altogether. All the problems and struggles Jim went through can be overcome by understanding the complexities of pragmatism. As everyone has pragmatism as a natural skill, if we all were to understand the intricacies of pragmatism we could all utilize pragmatism more effectively.

Tim Armstrong