Perkins is an Associate Professor of English at Prince George's Community College in Maryland and has published several articles on British and American authors. In the following essay, she examines how the point of view utilized in Empire of the Sun complements the anti-war theme of the novel.
In Charles Platt's Dream Makers: The Uncommon People Who Write Science Fiction, J. G. Ballard asserts, "Conventional life places its own glaze over everything, a sort of varnish through which the reality is muffled. In Shanghai, what had been a conventional world for me was exposed as no more than a stage set whose cast could disappear overnight; so I saw the fragility of everything, the transience of everything, but also, in a way, the reality of everything." Jim also sees "the reality of everything" in Ballard's semi-autobiographical.....
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