Ballard's short story "Billenium" depicts a dystopian future where overpopulation has led to extreme crowding. The main characters, Ward and Rossiter, discover a hidden room that could offer them more space and freedom. However, they are unable to escape the social norms of their capitalist society and consumerist mindset. They fill the new room with furniture and invite others to move in, returning to the same cramped conditions they previously endured. The discovery of new space ultimately changes nothing due to the overwhelming social and economic forces that condition people's lives in this overpopulated city.

1. Tomas Braun, Belen Brito Peret and Abril Teran Frias
Questions
1. Write a detailed synopsis of the story.
The short story, “Billenium”, written by J.G. Ballard, is set in the future, in which population
has increased massively so the world is not able to inhabit more people in a decent home,
so people are assigned small cubicles. The only way to have more space to live in, is
marrying and having kids. This story focuses in the lives of two men, John Ward and Henry
Rossiter. On day, they discover a hidden room (which symbolises freedom) that meant
having more place, privacy and increasing their standard of living. However, instead of
making a good use of the space, Rossiter and Ward, decide to fill up the place with Victorian
furniture (showing they could not escape from the consuming necessity) and to invite their
girlfriends with their family to move into the room, as they had space left. The capitalist
society of which they were part did not permit them make a good use of the new space, as
they could not escape from the lack of space they had.
2. Discuss the theme of over-population and the effect it has on both the way of life and
quality of life of the inhabitants of the city.
Overpopulation is one of the main themes of the text. This topic has an effect in the way of
living and quality of life of the inhabitants of the story. This theme, clearly represented along
the story, is completely ironic as while authority desires to reduce overpopulation they force
citizens to have kids. This shows a contradiction (and irony) over this theme, as the more
kids you have population increases and space is less. Inhabitants contribute to
overpopulating the city although space is one of their concerns and is what decreases their
standard and quality of life, as they finally get used to this and do not try to change it. People
lives are not decent, they live in small cubicles with no space at all. The inhabitants do not
have a kitchen of a bathroom on their own, everything is shared. Even streets and public
places are overcrowded. All these is caused due to overpopulation, which conditiones
people's lives in this city.
3. The quest for living space has become an overriding obsession with the people of the city.
Discuss this theme in detail. Include in your answer some discussion of the ways in which
Ballard makes the quest for space dominate the characters’ lives.
Overpopulation resulted in people in small cubicles, due to the lack of space. These cubicles
were small, suffocating, and uncomfortable for a person to live. Therefore, people were
desperate to get more space to live. They could do anything to achieve this, for example,
they joined cubicles with friends, and had a lot of children, contributing to overpopulation.
This conflict is what leads to the main character, Ward, to kick the wall and find a much
bigger place. He moves to this place with his friend Rossiter, and start to invite more and
more people, until he finishes up with the same space as before.

2. 4. What sort of relationship does Ballard put forward between the inner world of the
individual (as represented by Ward and Rossiter) and the outer world in which they live. In
other words, how does Ballard conceptualise the effect of surviving daily life in a hopelessly
over-crowded city on the consciousness of the individual as demonstrated by the ways in
which Ward and Rossiter manage the gift of space in the secret room they discover?
John Ward and Harry Rossiter (and every citizen) disliked the way in which they were
leaving because they were conditioned by overpopulation. In the story, Ballard depicts that
people had to share bathrooms and kitchens due to the lack of space. Moreover, their
actions were conditioned by the time people took in arriving at a place due to the traffic.
Also, citizens could not even enjoy walking down the street or going out, as streets were
always overcrowded. At the beginning of the text, Ward criticized the fact of being a landlord,
however at the end he finally becomes one of them as he sees the desperate need of space
and feels attracted by the consuming society which required money even though there was
no place. People were not able to change the society, because they were trapped inside it.
Ballard also criticized the Victorian society as it dealt with the authoritarian government
which oppressed, restricted and limited society.
5. In the story, Ballard does attempt some sort of explanation of the social, political and
economic causes of the extreme over-population that has beset the world. Explain his views
as they are presented in the story.
Ballard achieves to explain the causes of the extreme overpopulation by analysing the
social, political and economic causes. First of all, he criticizes the selfishness of society, who
always put their comfort first instead of thinking in others. This means that they eagered for
more space instead of fighting to reduce overpopulation which would have been more
logical. Moreover as a socio-economic aspect Ballard criticises capitalism and society's great
necessity of consuming and having more and more every time. This shows one of the
causes of overpopulation, which is people consumption and eager of always wanting more
money and material things never being satisfied without considering the lack of space. In the
story it is clearly represented this criticism as inhabitants continued buying objects and
furniture to put in their cubicle although they knew they had no space, symbolizing the
impossibility to escape from this way of living. Finally, he gives a political reason by involving
government. He depicts the idea of overpopulation being ironic, as authorities give restrictive
space and money to inhabitants and on the other hand encourages them to have children.
This shows a criticism towards the government and the system too.
6. Do you agree with his argument? Do you think that current population growth projections
indicate that we are likely to end up in the situation portrayed in the story?
In our opinion, if the governments don’t do anything about it, overpopulation will be a real
problem. However, taking decisions against this problem may also bring economic
consequences, as if the number of children a family can have is reduced, then in a near
future there will be more old people and adults than children, therefore affecting the future of
the country. Because of this, none of the world’s capitalist countries are doing something to

3. stop population growth. Moreover, this is the topic the story criticizes.
7. Describe and analyse Ward’s character in some detail. What values does he hold? Why
does Ballard make use of this type of character as the main character for this story?
Ward is one of the main character of the short story. He lives with his close friend, Harry
Rossiter. They both criticized the Victorian society. Ward, is more sensitive than Rossiter,
because when they needed space in the room, they had to take out the wardrobe he felt
disturbed because he is more attached with beauty. Besides, Ward, hated landlords at the
beginning of the text, but became at the end of the story one of them. He worked as a
Librarian.
8. What role does Rossiter play in the story?
Rossiter is Ward's friend and is the one who persuades him to invite people to live with them
in the cubicle. He is grateful to live with his friends in the cubicle over money’s desire, which
is why he hated landlords.
9. Describe the role of the female characters in the story.
The females in the story are Helen and Judith, who were Ward’s work mates. However,
females as a whole were seeked by men, to start up families, have kids and expand their
cubicle surface. In the specific case of Helen and Judith, they brought trouble to Ward, as
they moved to his large cubicle, and invited all of their relatives, filling all the space they had.
10. Discuss the effects that overpopulation and its attendant ills has had on the nature of
family life in relation to Ward’s family as well as Judith and Helen’s family relationships.
The effect of overpopulation has had on the nature of family life relationships is that the
overcrowded population was caused by families wanting to have some more space, which
was achieved by having kids. By wanting more space, they decide to have kids which
contribute with this, but, by having more kids, they finally end having the same or even less
space than they had.
11. What does the secret room symbolise in the story?
The secret room symbolizes freedom in this story. This place next to Rossiter and Ward’s
cubicle represents a place that let the protagonists escape from living in a restricted and
oppressing place. It made them liberate from the confimment of the standard of living they
had in their cubicle.
12. Why do you think Ward and Rossiter are unable to keep the gift of space to themselves?
Is Ballard making a comment on how our inner world ultimately reflects the shape of the
external world in which we live?

4. Ward and Rossiter weren’t able to keep their huge space for themselves, as they got used to
live in small spaces. It is part of the culture, and living in big places was something unusual,
unreal for them. This is why they let guests to invade the room. In addition, this element is
what makes of this story a circular story, as when there is a change, there is always
something that happens, which brings it all to the same situation they were at first. Moreover,
Ward’s decision is what shows that our inner world ultimately reflects the shape of the
external world in which we live.
13. What sort of living arrangement do they eventually end up allowing (and accommodating
to) in their secret room?
At the end of the story, there was too many people living in the secret room, so, they divided
the hidden room into different rooms so that everyone can have their part. But, finally, they
all finished living in a smaller place than the cubicle was.
14. Discuss Ballard’s style and language in the story? Consider also in what ways it is
appropriate to the nature of the story being told.
In the story, Ballard is using a third person, narrative narrator, and the language he uses is
descriptive and critical to the cubicles people lived in. He wanted to express how nasty and
suffocating these were, to express his message of what could happen if we do not solve our
population growth problems. For example, “he could hardly move”, or “there is no privacy or
comfort”.