A ‘postcolonial Bildungsroman’? Exploring identity alienation and technological modernity in J. G. Ballard’s Empire of the Sun

Abstract

This study examines how J. G. Ballard’s Empire of the Sun diverges from the traditional framework of the ‘postcolonial Bildungsroman’, a category in which it has frequently been placed in previous scholarship. Drawing on critiques of technological modernity, the paper explores Jim’s identity alienation as he transforms from British expatriate to Japanese captive and, ultimately, to a devotee of American power. Central to this analysis is Jim’s fetishization of technological modernity, as mediated through private cars, fighter planes, and atom bombs, which shape his (mis)understanding of survival, agency, and growth. The study concludes with a comparative reading of the novel and L. Zhang’s Adventures of Sanmao the Orphan, another wartime Shanghai Bildungsroman, to argue that Ballard’s novel compels readers to reconsider not only the personal development of a child in wartime but also the larger forces of modern technology that shape and distort the very notion of ‘growth’ in a (post)colonial world.