2. Meeting James G Ballard
James Graham Ballard was born on November the 15th, 1930 and died on
April the 19th, 2009. He was an english novelist, short story and essayst. He
was born in Shangai, China during the 2WW. He was taken to a
concentration camp. In 1946 he and his family moved to Great Britain and he
started to study medicine but he didn’t complete the studies. Years after, he
started working as a writer.
3. Characters
Ward: He is a lonely character. He is faraway from his family. He works in
a library and at the beginning of the stor, he lived in a cublicle. He is
friend of Rossiter. Then he goes to live to his house because he had an
argument with the cublicle’s landlord. There he discovers tghe secret
room breaking the wall as a result of his anger after the discussion. At the
end of the story he regrets of the idea they had of letting the girls and
their family live with them, becoming a powerful landlord.
Rossiter: He is friend of Ward and he lives in a kind of a cubicle but
bigger. He is the one who has the idea of inviting the girls to live in the
large roomwith Ward snd him asking for a small rent. He finishes feeling
like the owner of the room when he wasn’t.
Helen and Judith: They were Ward’s workmates. The girls had an
argument with the landlords of their cubicles so they were living in a
broom cupboard. Finally they lived with Rossiter, Ward, John and one of
the girl’s parents.
4. Relevance of the title
The amount of people living in the city
The time in the future that these people will be living where overpopulation
will be the biggest problem or threat to human race.
The story describes a situation of a moment in the future when the
population of the world has grown so much that there’s no space for
people to live a normal life
This is so abnormal that even the space that each person can occupy is
regulated by the city council.
5. Tone
Pessimistic: This is pessimistic because of the kind of life they
have. Also because we can see that the characters live under
quite negative conditions and they can’t have any hope for the
future because they know that the situation that they are living is
never going to improve. The idea that the cubicles will be smaller,
also show us pessimism in the story. “Over a hundred people
lived in the top of three floors of the old rooming house”
6. Themes
Overpopulation/ Lack of social responsibility: This theme is perfectly
shown all along the story because the main topic of the story is
overpopulation. There´s a lot of people living in the city so people have to
live in small cubicles and they have no privacy. Overpopulation is a result
of lack of social responsibility because of the government. Many actions in
the past made them be how they are living now. It is late to change things
now. The government should take control of the situations and stop
encouraging people to have four children. “The world population had
reached a plateau, levelling off at a 20.000 million.”
7. Themes
Power and loss of privacy: In this story the ones that play the role of
power are the landlords. They are greedy people that own lands and
that´s really important in the city. At the end of the story Rossiter and
Ward became landlords. Loss of privacy refers to all the people living in
the city. People don´t 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 a big room to stay. This made them powerful and they
became landlords. Finally they lose their privacy because of the people
they invited to live with them. “The partition pressed against his knees
and he could hardly move”
8. Themes
Destruction of beauty: This is shown in the city. As their is so many
people and cubicles, the beauty of the city is lost. We can also see the
destruction of beauty in the room when the boys had to sell all the pieces
of furniture and more specific the wardrobe that was the most beautiful
furniture they had in the room. The story explores how beauty was
destroy because of overpopulation. But not only with the wardrobe but
also with the important buildings that they needed them to put people
there to live. “Now, of course, the older buildings ad benn torn down and
replaced by the housing batteries, or converted into apartment blocks”
9. Symbolism
The wardrobe: The Victorian wardrobe that Ward and Rossiter bought
was a symbol of privacy and space for them. It’s size emphasizes the
emptiness of the place. But when they started to rent the room to the
girls and their relatives, they have to sell it. Days after, they realised how
beautiful it was and what it meant to them, regreting their action. “It was
a beautiful wardrobe, without doubt, but when it was gone it would make
the room seem even larger.”
The cublcle: It symbolises something insignificant. It was the only thiing
they could have and the small rivacy they had. However, in a way
finally Ward loses it so he couldn’t even have that. It also symbolises the
amount of people and the city overcrowded. As a conclusion, it
symbolises honor and a bit of privacy. Although Ward couldn’t have that
and he mises it. “’I hear they may reduce the allocation to three and a
half metres.’ Rossiter remarked.”
