2. INFORMATION ABOUT THE AUTHOR
J. G." Ballard(15 November 1930 – 19 April 2009)
was an English novelist, short story writer, and essayist.
Ballard came to be associated with the New Wave of science fiction early in
his career with apocalyptic (or post-apocalyptic) novels such as The
Drowned World (1962), The Burning World (1964), and The Crystal
World (1966). In the late 1960s and early 1970s Ballard focused on an
eclectic variety of short stories (or "condensed novels") such as those
found in The Atrocity Exhibition (1970), which drew comparison with the
work of postmodernist writers such as William S. Burroughs.
3. CHARACTERIZATION
J H O N W A R D S
• He is old, he is also the
protagonist, he works
as a librarian and he
finds the secret room.
Also he is more passive
than rossiter.
H E N R Y R O S S I T E R
• He is very different
from wards but they
are best friends. Also
he is more agressive
and he brings some
people to the room.
4. RELEVANCE OF THE TITTLE
• Billenium refers to the future time where they will be
living in where overpopulation will be the biggest
threat to human race.
• The story describes a situation of a moment of the
future when the population of the world has grown
so much that there is no space for people to live in
a normal life. This is so abnormal that even the
space that each person can occupy is regulated by
the city council
5. TONE QUOTATIONS
• The story has a pessimistic tone. That is because
we can see that the characters live under kind of
negative conditions and they cannot have any hope
for the future,as they know that the situation that
they are living is never going to improve .
6. THEMES
D E S T R U C T I O N O F B E A U T Y
• This is shown in the city. As there is too many
people and little cubicles, the beauty of the
city can not be appreciated. We can also see
the beauty when the boys have to sell all the
furniture and more especifically the wardrone,
that was the most beautiful piece of furniture
they had in the “secret” room. The beauty was
lost because of the overpopulation, as
cathedrals and others important and beautiful
buildings were replaced by cubicles.
7. THEMES
P O W E R A N D L O S S O F
P R I V A C Y
In the story the ones that play the role of power are
the landlords. They are greedy people that own
lands, something very important in the city. At the
end of the story Rossiter and Ward become
landlords.Loss of privacy refers to all the people
living in the city. People dont have space to live,
neither privacy because of the amount of people in
the city. In the middle of the story Rossiter and
Ward found they invited to live with them.
8. THEMES
O V E R P O P U L A T I O N -
L A C K O F S O C I A L
R E S P O N S I B I L I T Y
This theme is perfectly shown all along the story
because the main topic of the story is the
overpopulation.There a lot of people living in a city
so people have to live in a small cubicles and they
have no privacy. The lack of social responsibility
shows that all the actions in the past made them
live how take control of the situation and stop
ecouranging people to have four.
9. SIMBOLISM
T H E W A R D R O V E
• The significance of
the warddrobe is
the space they find,
and the advantage
to have it, also the
whole private world
T H E C U B I C L E
• The cubicle
symbolizes the
need of privacy
also the lack of
freedom and power
