“BILLENIUM”

By: Mia R and Victoria R

Analysis

TOPICS• Information about the

author

• Description of

characters

• Relevance of the title

• Tone

• Themes

• Symbolism

J.G Ballard

Shanghai, China(November 15, 1930 - April 19, 2009)

He was an english novelist

and a key figure in the New

Wave Movement in science

fiction.

Among his most famous works are:

- “The Atrocity Exhibition”

- “Empire of the sun”

- “Crash”

Each of which was later adopted into a feature film.

CHARACTERS

John Ward

He is the protagonist, a

middle aged man, who

is not married. He works

as a librarian and he is

the one that found the

“secret room”.

Henry Rossiter

He is Ward’s closest friend, he works

in Insurance Department at City Hall

and he has access to census statics.

He is who urges Ward to let the girls

move in.

CHARACTERS

Judith and Helen Waring:

They are the gils who Henry

Rossiter and John Ward let

move into their room, these girls

seem to be nice at first, but end

up bringing practically their

whole family in, being really

disrespectful

CHARACTERS

The story describes a situation the future

where population of the world has grown so

much that there is no space for people to

live a normal life. The space that each

person can have is regulated by a city

council.

“Billenium” makes reference to a time in the

future where overpopulation will be the

biggest problem to human race.

RELEVANCE OF THE

TITLEHi, I’m the

City Council!

Pessimistic

When we read the story we can see 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, maintain a passive role in the story

(they don´t do anything to revert the situation)

TONE

FUTURE

“ (…) and the ceaseless press of people jostling past the

window had reduced him to a state of exhaustion”

Overpopulation/Lack of ResponsibilityIn the story, the city is settled in the future, a future with

overpopulation, probably because of years of no birth

controls, non stop migration, and people don´t using

protection.

THEMES

Now they live crowded and with limited space. Everybody lives

in a small room, called “cubicle”, of 3,5 inches, which is owned

by a landlord.

“By 6.30, when he woke, hurrying to take his place in the bathroom

queue, the crowds already jammed it from sidewalk to sidewalk(…)”

Power and Loss of Privacy

Landlords had all the power, there was little privacy, because

they lived in small cubicles, one next to another.

When Ward found the room, he got the privacy and freedom

everybody wanted. When the girls moved in, as he became the

landlord, he also gained power, but when the girls´ family started

to move in, all the privacy they had went away.

THEMES

PRIVACY“ The small rental he charged the

others paid for the little food that

needed”

Destruction of Beauty

The story shows how beauty is lost because of overpopulation.

Important places like cathedrals, churches, town halls, are

destroyed because they are used to keep people (for them to

live there), because of the lack of space.The wardrobe represents, as it’s from Victorian

Times, the beauty form the past that Ward and

Rossiter don´t know about. When it´s

destroyed, the memories from the past are

destroyed.

THEMES

“ 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”

• The Wardrobe:

It symbolises freedom, because as now they have a bigger

room, they can decide what to put there. It also represents

beauty in the sense that, as it was a Victorian Wardrobe, it

comes, belongs, to the past that Ward and Rossiter didn´t

know much about.

SYMBOLISM

“ It had been a beautiful piece of furniture, in a way

symbolising this whole private world, and the

salesman at the store told him there were few like

it left”

SYMBOLISM

• The Cubicle:

The word “cubicle” symbolises the lack of

space, freedom, privacy and of power. They

have a limited size, and everyone has to respect

it and live with it. Landlords own and regulate

them.

“(…) in most single cubicles host and guest had to sit side

by side on the bed, conversing over their shoulders and

changing places periodically to avoid neck-strain”