2. AUTHOR
Complete name: James Graham
Ballard
Born: 15 November 1930
Died: 19 April 2009 (aged 78)
Occupation: novelist, short story
writer
Notable works: "crash" and "empire of
the sun"
3. CHARACTERS
ROSSITER: He was very kind because it was his idea
to share the room with the people who needed it, on
the other hand he was ambitious because he wanted
more and more money so he became the person who
he really hated, a landlord. He was a really good
friend of Ward
WARD: He is the protagonist. He finds the "secret"
room after he punches the wall. He also became the
thing he hated at the beginning of the story. He was
unmarried, and he works as a librarian.
4. CHARACTERS
HELEN AND JUDITH:
They are friends of Ward
and Rossiter. They were
kicked out of their cubicle.
In my opinion, they took
advantage of Ward and
Rossiter
5. RELEVANCE OF THE TITLE
This story describes a situation in the future
when the population of the world has grown so
much that there is no space for people to have
a normal life. The space that each person can
have is regulated by the city council. "Billenium"
makes reference to a time in the future where
overpopulation will be the biggest problem to
human race
6. TONE
Pesimistic: Because we can see when we read
the story that the characters don't have any type
of hope for the future, because they know that
the situation is not going to change. The
characters as well mantein a passive role in the
story
7. THEMES
DESTRUCTION OF BEAUTY: as the world is over
populated goverments had destroy churches,
cathedrals and townhalls to make space for people
to live and for example the loss of old furniture or
art pieces that can't fit on the reduced cubicles.
QUOTE: "all he had been able to see of it for the
past few months, was now dismantled. It had been
a beautiful piece of furniture, [...] and the salesman
at the store told him there were few like it left [...] it
was a beautiful wardrobe, without doubt, but when
it was gone it would make the room seem even
large"
8. THEMES
POWER AND LOSS OF PROVACY: As there are so
many people houses now are so little just one people
can fit in and they are next each other so people
don't have any privacy. It also makes the landlords
have all the power because people are so desperate
for a room they would live anywhere.
QUOTE: "It's architecture was impossible to follow,
rooms letting off all angles, and luckily the corridor
was a cul-de-sac. The mounds of cases ended four
feet from the end wall and a partition divided off the
cubicle, just wide enough for two beds"
9. THEMES
OVERPOPULATION/LACK OF
RESPONSABILITY: The city where Ward lives
is very crowded because in the past goverment
should have controled birth but they were not
responsible about it.
QUOTE: "Thirty million people are packed into
this city now, a million increase in just one year"
10. SYMBOLISM
WARDROBE: freedom because they don't have a lot
of space to have this kind of things, beauty
symbolising the things that belonged to the past, a
past they don't know about. A hole world for
themselves. The destruction of the wardrobe
symbolises the loss of space, freedom and beauty
they found before
CUBICLE: lack of freedom, space or privacy and
also lack of power because they can't decide where
they wanted to live or with who they wanted to live
