Empire of the Sun Chapter Summary & Analysis | Part 3, Chapter 42

Part 3, Chapter 42 Summary

Two months have passed and Jim and his parents are preparing to leave for England. Jim remembers Dr. Ransome's words. The city is bustling with American soldiers, thousands of Chinese, pickpockets, pedicab drivers, prostitutes, vendors, opium dealers, and the "evening citizenry of Shanghai" dressed in fur and flash.

Jim recalls he began the war watching the newsreels at Shanghai Cathedral and now ends it watching the reruns of the war on the three large cinema screens set on scaffolding on the waterfront - Russian machine gunners in Stalingrad; U.S. Marines flamethrowers in the Pacific theatre; RAF fighters in Germany; followed by Chinese propaganda against the Communists.

Jim has spent many hours watching these cinemas during the two months of his parents' slow recovery. He rode through the city in a chauffeur-driven Lincoln Zephyr, Yang his old chauffeur back, visiting the White Russian dentist in the French Concession, and then to...
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