The Empire of the Sun.

Kateelynn K.
English 3-4.

Jim, once a rich, spoiled kid, has fully transformed into a strong, physically and emotionally affected teenager after the war. You can see he was never the same again, not even if things were the same after the war – once something big happens, it leaves a huge impact on the person and he will need a lot of time to get over what happened.

Before the war, Jim was a spoiled, rich kid with a huge heart for airplanes. He was only this way because he was young and didn’t know how to be serious yet. He was easily fascinated with many things, just like many little children normally would. He constantly liked to play and have fun with his toy airplanes. He wanted to be a pilot so bad, he was even obsessed with the airplanes he sees and he even knew the names for them too. Everything changed when the war bombed into Jim’s homeland.

During the war, Jim and many others were forced to go to the camps. There was a big change in him as of he wasn’t rich or spoiled anymore. There wasn’t anything luxury about the camps, he had to live with the lousy food, people dying from many illnesses, and poorly made shelters. It was a living nightmare to him but he managed to stay healthy and strong after all these years. He developed a plan of running the errands around and helping people, that was what kept him going. When he had to leave the camp with the others, he carried his suitcase, enclosed with his favorite picture, the airplane toy and magazines. He later decided to throw the suitcase into the ocean – that definitely showed he was different and probably wanted to move on.

After the war, he came back to the camp and this time, he was almost like the kid he was once before the war even started. He would ride a bicycle all over the place, keep things perfect and tidy like his house was always so before the war and just have some fun until the American army came and got him (not in a bad way). He was sent to a camp for the children so parents could come and pick up their children. He had forgotten how his mother and father looked like after all these years so he didn’t recognize them at all when they came to him. This shows he was never the same again & he will need a lot of therapy and time to get over the war, the camps and everything.

In conclusion, you can see that Jim changed from a rich, spoiled kid, to a teenager, with a different attitude. We all can assume that Jim is going to always think about the war and how it changed him. I’m 100% sure he will keep everything to himself and just go on with his life. Like I said, once something big happens, it’s going to leave a huge impact on the person and even change the person forever.