Explain how the writers explore the idea of a relationship to a place in the short stories The People Before (by Maurice Shadbolt) and Billennium (by J.G. Ballard).

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Selected Stories of Ourselves, by Various Authors

. Explain how the writers explore the idea of a relationship to a place in the short stories The People Before (by Maurice Shadbolt) and Billennium (by J.G. Ballard).

EXEMPLAR STUDENT RESPONSE:

In both Billennium by J.G. Ballard, and The People Before by Maurice Shadbolt, the reader is presented with a considered exploration of our relationship with our surroundings. In both short stories there exists an antagonistic and belligerent relationship between the locale and the characters, while surreptitiously present is a hint of a greater, far more arduous struggle between the transient and the eternal.
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In The People Before, Shadbolt illustrates the aggressive and violent relationship between the narrator’s father and the land throughout the story. From the beginning ‘[the father’s] life was committed to winning order from wilderness.’ The diction choice of ‘winning’ here suggests a competition or a conflict, immediately giving to the relationship a sense of mutual confrontationality and fierce aggression that moves beyond the mere simplicity of a man weeding out wild grass. Furthemore, the description of the father ‘chopping jerkily’ and ‘hacking’ invoke visual imagery of brutality and violence, further suggests adversariality and inimicality.

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