Empire of the Sun
A pragmatic attitude can be the difference between life and death and Steven Spielberg shows this in the film Empire of the Sun. James Graham is an important character in the text as he exposes some of the complexities of pragmatism such as demonstrating what pragmatism involves 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 achieve it. James is the perfect person to show the complexities as he is easily manipulated and naive.
Jamie shows us how pragmatism can be learned by anyone in order to survive. Spielberg uses characterisation of Jamie to show this idea. Jamie is dressed in his private school uniform and is located in a British cathedral singing in a choir. This shows Jamie as a boy who is protected by the wealth and pride of the British and by his family. Spielberg uses lighting from stained glass windows on Jamie’s face to show him being protected by God. Spielberg shows Jamie as being completely protected with no need for pragmatism at this point. Jamie has been portrayed this way to contrast to when he fully adopts a pragmatic attitude later in the film. From this we can see that pragmatism is a skill that is learned in order to survive rather than natural trait.
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 that once Jim reaches a level of pragmatism that is beyond his mentality, Jim will revert back to the morals of Jamie as he cannot cope. The first level of pragmatism Jim expresses in the film is Jim bowing to the sergeant whenever he is near him in order to be seen as better than the other prisoners. 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 as he realises that if he changes he can get what he wants. Jim’s attitude also develops more as shown by Jim stealing the food pails from the dead man to get more food so he doesn’t get so hungry. The boy feels no remorse for the dead man and feels this is an acceptable action to survive. Spielberg then shows us the next level of pragmatism. Jamie not only refuses the dead woman'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 emotionally 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. These different levels and how we deal with them are what makes pragmatism complex. This teaches us that to be fully pragmatic; you have to be mentally strong as you need to be able to go against your previous morals so you can survive to the best of your ability.
Jim shows elaborate pragmatism when he fully embraces pragmatism, and completely changes his personality and mentality as a result. Jim asks for the dead man’s shoes. This is a parallel scene used by Spielberg to contrast with an earlier scene in the movie where Jim refuses the dead woman's shoes as it was beyond him mentally. This alongside Jim having no sympathy for the man and only wanting his shoes leads us to believe that Jim has fully embraced a pragmatic attitude as he has let go of his previous morals. This shows Jim’s 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 to adapt and be pragmatic. Spielberg now characterises Jim as an American. Jim has lost his British morals and he is no longer polite and and instead 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 is using Latin to represent his old way of life and British morals, and Jim no longer cares about his Latin homework and no longer cares about being British as he believes being American is better. Spielberg has shown us a completely different character from the British boy at the start of the film. The mental change for Jamie is the American lifestyle; the physical change is the bomber jacket and the accent. Jamie changes his physical appearance to look more American as the Americans were getting what they wanted and seemed the most powerful in the prisoner of war camp. Jamie changes his mental attitude so he can get more food, and fit in with the Americans more.
It is interesting to know about the complexities of pragmatism as we all have the ability to have a pragmatic attitude 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 woman'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 could not. This shows the difficulties and how intricate pragmatism is, by showing that decisions are not black and white. Knowing that there are different levels of pragmatism is important in today’s society because we can identify our limits for pragmatism just like Jim. Pragmatism is relevant to the modern world as everyone 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.
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. As everyone can learn to be pragmatic, we should all understand the intricacies of pragmatism so we can utilize a pragmatic attitude more effectively to our advantage.
Tim Armstrong
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