Empire of the Sun Quotations

Empire of the Sun Quotations

PRE-CAMP

Typical child – plays games, writing book on bridge, phoning in radio stations, making models of planes etc.

‘The dances and garden parties, the countless bottles of Scotch consumed in aid of the war effort’ – adults not taking the war seriously, Jim is. 12

‘Real war was the thousands of Chinese refugees dying of cholera, and the bloody heads mounted on pikes.’ – he understands the true nature of the war. 14

‘this violent and hostile city’ – p17

‘too distracted by news of war even to notice him’ 18

parents call him Jamie – linked to his childhood

‘Don’t touch it! I’ll kill you!’ Amah has his gun – childhood anger

‘spent many peaceful hours in her bedroom’ – wants to be close to mum when she’s away 19 – use of many suggests she is away often and he misses her

‘Jim told himself that he never moved because he was warm under the snow’ 21

‘he admired the Japanese. He liked their bravery and stoicism, and their sadness which struck a curious card with Jim, who was never sad’ 23

‘the swimming pool had been drained’ 25

‘The ladies in silk dresses and their husbands in grey suits strolled through the debris of war arranged for them by a passing demolition squad.’ – incongruity of the image 32

‘he realised that he himself had probably started the war’ – naïve, childlike – full of guilt 43

‘he lay stunned, expecting the bare-chested Chinese to come back and apologise’ – innocence/naivety 45

‘perhaps the war was over’ 46

‘glad to be alone’ 53

‘wars always invigorated Shanghai, quickened the pulse of its congested streets. Even the corpses in the gutters seemed livelier’ – personification 56

‘he began to say: I’ll kill you… but checked himself’ – more controlled 60

‘There were dozens of footprints in the powder, his mother’s bare feet whirling within the clear images of heavy boots, like the patterns of complicated dances set out in his parents’ foxtrot and tango manuals’ 62 – symbolic of his confusion that his parents are missing.

‘this jewelled icon of a small exploding boy’ 63 - metaphor

‘the games in the garden had lost their magic’ 64 – losing childhood innocence

‘she had moved from side to side, propelled by an over-eager partner, perhaps one of the Japanese officers to whom she was teaching the tango’ 65 – naïve, emotional to readers who can infer his parents have been captured.

‘watched the water level almost imperceptibly falling in the swimming pool’– symbolism

‘the house seemed sombre, as if it was withdrawing from him in a series of small and unfriendly acts’ – personification – even his safe haven of a home seems threatening – symbolism – no where safe due to the war

‘there was something sinister about a drained swimming-pool and he tried to imagine what purpose it could have if it were not filled with water’ – symbolism – 66

‘Jim was glad to be left alone’ 75

‘his mouth a tighter and older shape’ – the start of war is already forcing him to become more mature/hardened – suggests that by the end of the war more change will have occurred

‘A peculiar space was opening around him, which separated him from the secure world he had known before the war’ – distancing himself to cope 76

‘now he felt nervous and slightly cold all the time’ - lacks comfort/warmth

‘found it difficult to concentrate on anything’

‘he saw that Shanghai had changed’ – Japanese taking over, Chinese with heads down – submissive

‘The roads felt harder than he remembered’ – metaphor of how difficult life has now become 77

‘the toy cupboards in the children’s rooms made him feel ever more empty’ – symbolic of his lost childhood 82

‘as the water drained from the swimming pools of the western suburbs’ 83

‘Jim scarcely recognised his long hair and grey cheeks, the strange face in a strange mirror’

‘an urchin half his previous size and twice his previous age’

‘a group of Japanese soldiers were cooking a meal beside the empty swimming-pool’

‘the emergency he knew would soon come’ – precocious 85

‘he knew that kindness counted for nothing’ – realises the brutality of the situation and that he has to be independent/selfish to survive 86

‘cold sunlight shivered on the river, turning its surface into chopped glass’ – symbolic of the violence and cruelty of Shanghai – oxymoron – cold sun – shows his confusion/idea of contrast from the city he used to live in – use of shiver – cold/sinister – symbolic of what he is facing 87

‘War, had changed everything in Jim’s world so radically’ 88

‘his thin body seemed to float on the night’ – detachment 89

‘he was sure that she would emerge from this dark cubby-hole like the Christmas fairy and tell him that the war was over’ – childlike – still believes (or needs to believe) in fairytales/innocence. metaphor of war – cubby-hole 93

‘Jim… A new name for a new life’ – start of a new identity for a new life/freedom 95

‘Jim’s entire upbringing could have been designed to prevent him from meeting people like Basie, but the war had changed everything’ 97

‘All the experience of the previous weeks told him not to trust anyone, except perhaps the Japanese’ 98

‘the embers gleamed like gold teeth’ –simile- fear/haunted by the image 101

‘It had never occurred to Jim that anyone might want the war to continue, and he puzzled over the bizarre logic’ – later he adapts to the war and is saddened leaving camp 103

‘A strange doubling of reality had taken place, as if everything that had happened to him since the war was occurring within a mirror’ – detachment

‘his parents might fail to recognise him’ 111

‘When he was hungry or missed his parents, he often dreamed of aircraft’

‘being herded from the truck’

‘Once, without realising it, he had found himself eating the watery gruel. Jim had felt uneasy, and stared at his guilty hands’ 112 – transferred epithet?

‘parts of his mind and body frequently separated themselves from each other’

‘Jim began for the first time to grasp the real purpose of the detention centre’ – place for the dying - 113

‘anyone who sacrificed themselves for the others soon died too’ – realises that he has to be selfish – maturity 119

‘For the first time in his life Jim felt free to do what he wanted’ – feels no guilt/consequences with Basie, welcomes this change 120

‘at last he was moving towards the welcoming world of the prison camps’ paradox 126

‘these strange dislocations appealed to Jim’

‘For the first time he felt able to enjoy the war’ 127

‘Jim watched him without resentment. He and Basie had collaborated in order to stay alive, but Basie, rightly, had dispensed with Jim as soon as he could’ – parenthesis used to show he understands/agrees with his decision/ isn’t bitter

‘the prisoners sat weakly on the benches, jerked to fro like life-size puppets that had lost their stuffing’ – simile – puppet image appropriate as no will of their own/controlled by others. Lost their stuffing – hope/strength etc. 131

‘looked as dead as the discarded mannequins in the alley behind the department store’ – simile – again suggests lack of life/lack of will. Discarded suggests the people in Shanghai have been forgotten as people focus on the war in Germany. 134

‘he knew that he had been right to drink the first water himself’ – self preservation/survival 135

‘Jim realised that he was closer to the Japanese’

‘ready to chance everything on little more than their own will’ – admires their survival/strength 136

‘aware of the gap that now separated Jim from his fellow prisoners’ 137

‘Jim had also noticed that Dr Ransome was less interested in the dying old people than he pretended’ – understands he needs to make himself feel needed 138

‘great moodiness and independence, qualities he admired’ 139

admires Japanese because ‘they’re brave’ 139

‘He wished that he had flown with the Japanese when they attacked Pearl Harbor’ 141

wants to join Japanese Air Force when war is over – shows where his loyalties lie

‘In his mind, he had identified the Japanese aircraft with his confidence that he would soon see his parents again’ – symbolism of the different planes throughout the novel

‘rocking to and fro’ 143 – complete anguish/distress – trying to regain comfort of being a child – being rocked

‘Dr Ransome’s gesture puzzled him’ – doesn’t understand why he puts Jim first 146

‘his soft face like the flesh of a fading fruit’ – simile – shows how the people are rotting away 148

‘their faces drained of expression by some tragedy that had overtaken them’ 149

‘It disappointed Jim that none of his fellow prisoners was interested in the war. It would have helped to keep up their spirits, a task that Jim was finding more and more difficult.’ 150

‘The lines of burial mounds were trying to trick Jim’s eyes, they moved in waves towards the vehicle, a sea of the dead’ personification – wishing to bring them back to life or as if he is becoming increasingly close to death as the waves come in they bring death with them 152

‘There were thousands of coffins, enough to take Dr Ransome and Basie, his mother and father and Vera, Number Two Coolie and himself… use of a list, places himself last – feels unimportant. Use of aposiopesis – shows he is uncertain if he will survive

‘he felt saddened by the memory of all he had been through, and of how much he had changed’

‘he felt a strange lightness in his head, not because his parents had rejected him, but because he expected them to do so, and no longer cared’ – resignation – 155

‘The trenches hunted among the burial mounds, a maze lost within itself’ – personification 156

‘he imagined he was one of the shadows, a black carpet lying across the tired land’ – shadow- feels insubstantial/invisible. Metaphor – shows how many people feel lost/invisible by the war – carpet. Symbolism of black – death. tired land – people’s emotions so powerful – so weary – transfers to surroundings – transferred epithet 156

‘They were Brewster Buffaloes, a type of American fighter that had been no match for the Japanese’ tone of admiration

‘Jim hoped that his parents were safe and dead’ irony/paradox 160

‘Jim could remember the elaborate ceremony as the Japanese soldiers dressed him in the metal and leather armour’ 163

‘secure world of the camp’ 164

‘reminding Jim that Private Kimura had once been a child, as he himself had been before the war’ 166

‘In front of Jim was Lunghua Camp, his home and universe for the past three years, and the suffocating prison of nearly two thousand Allied nationals – paradox – shows the contrast in Jim’s experience compared to others 167

‘naming the sewage-stained paths between the rotting huts after a vaguely remembered London allowed too many of the British prisoners to shut out the reality of the camp’ – critical tone

‘The years in Lunghua had not given Jim a high opinion of the British’ 168

‘they were an intact piece of the pre-war world that he could stare at for hours, like Mrs Vincent and her films’ 173

‘Jim knew that they were complete strangers but he kept the pretence alive, so that in turn he could keep alive the lost memory of his parents’ – photo of ‘adopted’ parents 175

‘However, for Mrs Vincent perhaps he would go back to the huts…’ aposiopesis 176

‘The former architect and entrepreneur, who had represented so much that Jim most admired about Shanghai, had been sadly drained by his years in Lunghua’ – symbolic of the downfall of Shanghai, use of parenthesis- creates a tone of sympathy/pity 177

‘what worried Jim was that his mother and father might also have changed’ 179

‘You’ll miss this camp when the war’s over’ 183

‘Above all, Jim admired the Kamikaze pilots’ 189

‘Jim identified himself with these Kamikaze pilots, and was always moved by the threadbare ceremonies that took place beside the runway.’ – acceptance of death

‘He welcomed the likelihood of his own death. Despite everything, he knew he was worth nothing.’ 194

‘trembling with a secret hunger that the war would so eagerly satisfy’ – longs for death

‘for those still keen to stay alive, a death was good news’ – inference- he is separate from that belief- wants to die 198

‘often he visualised staying there forever, even after the war ended’ – 204

‘the limbs of restless sleepers struggling beneath their brown quilt’ welcomes death, sees it as peaceful/sleeping/comfort – quilt 206

fascinated by death – ‘watched the eyes, trying to detect a flash of light when the soul left’ 207

‘Do you want the war to end, Jim? – italics – shows his uncertainty 210

‘His own feelings, his determination to survive, counted for nothing in the end’ – tone of resignation 211

‘He liked the Americans and approved of them in every way. Whenever he entered this enclave of irony and good humour his spirits rose’ 214

‘Jim almost welcomed the hunger when he would see again the curious light the Mustangs had brought with them…’ – welcoming death – symbolic of death saw planes when nearly died building the runway 222

‘Jim waited patiently, well aware that Basie exploited him’ – low self-esteem/worth, happy for people to take advantage of him 225

‘certain fears that he had tried to repress, that the years in Lunghua would come to an end’

‘The Japanese soldiers, Jim knew, would take ten minutes to kill the coolie’ – detached, understands their behaviour 228

‘This confusion of loyalties, the fear of what would happen to them once the Japanese were defeated, affected everyone in the camp.’ – fear of the unknown 233

‘the prospect of being killed excited him; after the uncertainties of the past week he welcomed any end.’ 238