Empire of the Sun - How traumatized people handle changes?

... Empire of the Sun (Film adapted from Ballard) How traumatized people handle changes? Changes can be found throughout 'Empire of the Sun'. The focus, war can be regarded as the most significant change, which has traumatized many characters. War is a circumstance that twists people's lives, plunging them from stability to instability. When war ends, changes take place again as people are removed from instability to stability. War is evil as it deviates people's attitude in dealing with changes, which contrasts to what they normally would do. In the following, I will examine how Jim, Basie, Mrs. Victor and Dr. Rawlins face the war. From them, we can see a range of different ways people handle changes. As Jim is the dominant character, through him, we can have an insight into how war has created a drastic change to him and turned his world into a topsy-turvy. As quoted from the novel,

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