English 2

April 15, 2008 Atiya Groomes
English 2
Period ¾
The Growth and Change of Jamie Graham

The movie “Empire of The Sun” is about World War II in the East. In this movie there is one character that I feel grew and changed the most. That character is Jamie Graham. He is a British boy living in China on British territory. Before the war, Jamie’s life was “first-class." During the war, Jamie’s life forced him to act and make choices for his self. After the war, he experienced a rebirth. Jamie changed into a whole new person.
Before the Japanese invasion in China Jamie was a spoiled little British boy. He had a driver to take him anywhere he needed to go, he attended a private catholic school, and he lived in a luxurious mansion with his mother and father. Jamie lived a wealthy life he had no care in the world.
During World War II Jamie’s Life was completely different. He lived in a Japanese internment camp. During this time he had none of the luxuries he had before. He had to hustle and bustle to make ends meet for himself and the people who he cared about. At the camp even though Jamie was living under not so good circumstances he made the choice to keep his original family values he even found himself his very own imitation mother and father who were a lot like his real mother and father. At this point you could consider Jamie a young adult.
After the war was over Jamie was sent to an orphanage. Luckily he met back up with his parents, but he did not really recognize them until he saw his mother’s hair. Actually his aura was completely different even though there were no real physical changes about Jamie you could see that he had a entirely different outlook on life. Jamie experienced a rebirth that helped him grow into a man very fast.
In effect to Jamie going from “poor little British boy” to “MAN”, I feel that Jamie Graham experienced the most growth through out the movie. He went from bratty to hustler to adult in less than 10 years. At the end of the movie he was no longer Jamie Graham he was someone else.