Summary:
In James Clavell's novel King Rat the central theme is survival. The men inside the prisoner of war camp Changi, struggle to survive through many obstacles. The weather where Changi is located, on the eastern tip of Singapore, is the utmost extreme.
Survival of the Fittest
"The world is a jungle, and only the strong survived and the weak should die. It was you or the other guy" (Clavell 11). In James Clavell's novel King Rat the central theme is survival. The men inside the prisoner of war camp Changi, struggle to survive through many obstacles. The weather where Changi is located, on the eastern tip of Singapore, is the utmost extreme. Also, the conditions in which the men of Changi are living in are those no one expects to endure. The way these men are living is enough to drive anyone insane, which is why the men of Changi must survive their own thoughts. Throughout King Rat the living conditions, weather, and the men themselves contribute greatly to the theme of survival that surrounds this novel.
Due to the camps location, the eastern tip of Singapore, Japan, the weather conditions construct a barrier making it harder for the men to survive. This is greatly displayed throughout the novel. "God, Grey thought, you can smell him from fifty paces. They've just got to issue more soap. But he knew that it wasn't just Masters. It was all of them. If you didn't bathe six times a day, the sweat hung like a shroud above you." (Clavell 22-23) Here, the Provost Marshal, Grey, is reflecting on how bad the stench of the men is. Changi had little soap, so the men had to ration it. The extreme heat in Changi was causing the men to sweat tremendously, but there was not enough soap for all of them to wash. This caused more diesis and sickness amongst the men. "Peter Marlowe stepped out into the cloudburst. In a moment Mac and Larkin had stripped and followed him, joining the other naked men glorying in the torrent. Their bodies welcomed the sting, lungs breathed the cooled air, heads cleared. And the stench of Changi was washed away." (Clavell 79) The severity of the weather and how it is effecting the men is shown in this quote. The heat in Changi is pushing the men near insanity. The heat causes them to be lethargic, irritated, and frustrated. The climate in Changi is bringing down the men, and makes yet another hurtle these men must overcome.
"Closer Changi lost it's beauty and became what it was - an obscene forbidding prison." (Clavell 7) The living conditions that came to be in Changi where inhumane and unacceptable for any person regardless. "When he had finished, he tilted the bottle of water while he still squatted and washed away the trace of feces, deftly using the fingers of his left hand. Always the left. The right is the eating hand. The natives have no word for left hand or right hand, only dung hand and eating hand. And all men used water, for paper, any paper, was too valuable." (Clavell 117) This act of washroom behavior makes the men disgusted with themselves and causes them to loose their sense of self worth. Wiping away traces of feces with your hand definitely makes takes away ones dignity and pride. The men don't feel like men anymore, which can lead to dangerous thoughts of suicide or homicide. Additionally, there were many diseases that flourished in Changi, but there wasn't near enough medication to treat them. "Grey left the hut he felt a spasm building, and he began to hurry to the latrines. Before he got half way the spasm climaxed and a little of the bloody mucus oozed out of him, soaking even more the grass pad he wore in his pants." (Clavell 311-312)Dysentery, a form of malaria was very common in Changi. It was also fairly easy to cure, but there was not enough medication in the camp, so either the men had to live with it or they eventually died from it. The fact that the disease was curable but the Japanese refused to give the camp medication, shows how bad the living conditions in Changi where.
Everything about Changi made it hard to live there. The men knew how bad it was, and not only did they have to survive the weather and the conditions in which they where living, but they also had to escape from there own thoughts. " 'Would you like to come for dinner tonight, Ewart, old boy? Perhaps you'd like to bring the missus.' Ewart mumbled through clenched teeth. He took his rice and stew and turned away. 'Take it easy Ewart' Peter Marlowe cautioned him. 'Take it easy yourself! How do you know what it feels like? I swear to god I'll kill him one day.' 'Don't worry-' 'Worry! They're dead. His wife and child are dead. I saw them dead. But my wife and two children? Where are they, eh? Where? Somewhere dead too?' " (Clavell 204) The men in Changi are so out of touch with reality they sometimes don't know the difference between fact and fiction. They have not been in contact with the real world for so long, things they crave and need they can get by imaging it. When the men become so out of touch with reality they endanger there own lives. The men need to deal with the tricks their mind plays on them and the disappointment when they find out it is not real. In addition, the men have to resist the temptation of suicide. This very strong emotion makes it extremely hard to survive. "At night you dreamed. Dreamed about food and woman. Your woman. And soon you would enjoy the dreaming more then the waking, and if you where careless you would dream while awake, and the days would run into nights, and the night into day. Then there was only death. Smooth. Gentle. It was so easy to die. Agony to live." (Clavell 23) This quote shows how hard it is for the men to escape there overpowering thoughts of suicide. They hate their lives in Changi, after everything they've been through they have had enough and don't feel the will to live anymore. Living only brings more pain, the pain of missing your family, the hunger pains, the diseases, the inhumane conditions of the camp, it all together makes the men of Changi feel so worthless they believe they have no reason to live.
The men of Changi have to endure many things that would come across as appalling and unfeasible to most people. Which is why the central theme in James Clavell's novel King Rat is survival. Every man in the Japanese prisoner of war camp, Changi, have to withstand torturing weather, unruly living conditions, and their own dangerous thoughts of suicide and self destruction. " If the camp gave no trouble, it got none. To ask for food was trouble. To ask for medicine was trouble. To ask for anything was trouble. That they where alive was trouble" (Clavell 9) Some of the men in Changi actually survived, against all odds.
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