Tuesday 21 September 2010

Chapter One - Abi Sears

The first chapter of Empire of the Sun paints a picture of Shangai in war for the reader and also describes the way that Jim's dreams are beginning to only be about the war which may be because of all the war films that are being shown at the time. Jim gets himself prepared to a Christmas fancy dress party and manages to persuade and convince his seventeen year old governess to accompany him to the party so that she can see her parents, his parents can eat dinner and he will be allowed to roam around the house by himself during the party.
The war extremely worries Jim's parents and they do not like the idea of Jim talking in a violent way and therefore punish him when he says that he will kill Amah if he touches his BB gun.
His parents say that they do not think Jim should be allowed to take his BB gun to the party as it is not a particularly sensible thing to do in a time of war so they encourage him to take his aeroplane instead. Jim notices how exhausted and worried his father is and how he seems to be in a rush to spend time with Jim and how he is making plans for things that aren't due to happen until way into the future (eg: Jim's university) as though he fears that he will not be able to discuss them at another time, at a later date. This concerns Jim so he decides to obey his father and take his aeroplane to the party instead of his BB gun. On the way to the party, Jim is pleased to see that the other Europeans in Shanghai are all leaving for the party as well.

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