John Ward works as a librarian and lives in a small cubicle due to overpopulation. He befriends Henry Rossiter and they discover a secret room that gives them more space and power over others. However, as more people move in, privacy is lost. The story is a critique of overpopulation, showing a dystopian future where people live in tiny spaces with no beauty or freedom due to the large population and lack of responsibility in controlling it.

1. Billenium
Agustin Fila and Matias
Castro Cendra

2. James Graham Ballard
 15 November 1930 – 19
April 2009
 Was an english novelist,
short story writer and
essayist.
 The genre of his stories
were science fiction
and transgressive
fiction.

3. Characters
 John Ward: they call him Ward, he is
middle age, he worked as a librarian, he
becomes what he hates at the biggining
of the story for money, protagonist of the
story, he find the secret room
 Henry Rossiter: He was Ward best friend,
he was self interest, ambicious for money.

4. Relevance of the title
 The story describes a situation
in the future when the
population of the world has
grown so much that there is
not space for people to have
a normal life. The sapce that
each person can have is
regulated by the city council.
“Billenium” makes reference
to a time in the future were
over population will be the
biggest problem for human
race.

5. Tone
 Pessimister: 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 have a
pacific role in all the story
“The street was always full, and endless
clamour of voices and shuffling feet.”

6. Theme
 Overpopulation – lack of
responsibility: The world was
overpopulated, and they all
live in small cubicles. The land
lords sent them into this
cubicles and they don´t have
the resposibility of having their
own house and the resposibility
that it takes.
“The street was always full, an
endless clamour of voices and
shuffilng feet.”

7. Theme
 Power and loss of privacy:
Rossiter and Ward become
powerful when they discover the
secret room, and they started to
live there but when they met the
girls, they said to them to live
with them but they have to pay
some money to stay in the room,
but then the girls started bringing
her familiars so they have to
make smallest the place so they
started to lose privacy.
“Six beds now in line along the
wall. This gave each of them closer
together.”

8. Theme
 Destruction of beauty: The world is overpopulated
so the people had to live in smallest rooms, like
cubicles, so there is no space for furniture or any
other decoration. Also all the cathedrals, churches
and townhall lost their beauty because people
started living inside them.
“The great banqueting room in the former city hall
had been split horizontally into four decks, each of
these cut up into hundreds of cubicles.”

9. Symbolism
 The wardrobe was of the 1990´s.
The significance of the wardrobe
is the loss of beauty and the lack
of space. They can only have the
wardrobe when they move to the
secret big room because there
was space to put it. This makes us
realized how beauty was lost
because in the cubicles there was
no space to put furniture or
decorations .
“It was a beauty wardrobe, without
doubt, but when it was gone it
would make the room seem even
larger”

10. Symbolism
 The cubicle: The word cubicle symbolises the room,
because they live in a little space so the room
where they had to live is like a cubicle. It also
symbolise lack of privacy, lack of space, lack of
power because they can´t decide where to live.
“´The wall does tilt a little´, Ward admitted. ´Actually,
its about four degrees out- I used a plumb-line. But
there´s still plenty of room on the stairs for people to
get by.”