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.
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.
An integral aspect of the father’s relationship with the land is his desire to assert dominance over it; his immense occupation with complete physical ownership of the land highlights his inability to form a deeper connection with it. The hyperbolic statement ‘...history only began the day he first set foot on the land’ reveals the father’s disregard for the land’s cultural and historical background; to him the land’s significance and value is only validated through his ownership of it. Furthermore, we are told that ‘He’d hardly have said he loved the land....love [was] an extravagance’. Shadbolt’s use of ‘love’, and ‘extravagance’ here creates a contrast between the spiritual and the physical; while love is commonly accepted as something immaterial, the use of ‘extravagance’ assigns a monetary value of sorts to it, as if it were a commodity. It serves to undermine the essence and purpose of such a relationship with the land; the deeper spiritual connection is rejected for an appreciation for the farm’s material and monetary value, and more importantly his ownership of it. Moreover, the father’s assertion of dominance over the land is explored in the description that ‘it was his...legal title...all that could matter’, and ‘In a sense it had only ever been his’. While this assessment of the father’s connection is coloured by the narrator’s biased judgement, it illustrates how the father and the narrator have abandoned the true value of the land, instead choosing to only evaluate the land in terms of its material value. In doing so, the father is asserting his own authority and imposing his own order.
However, it becomes plainly evident that the father’s relationship with the land is non-viable, and fails to establish any form of meaningful connection between him and the land. It is told that after the Maoris leave, that the father felt ‘that the land itself had heaped some final indignity upon him’. The personification here endows the land with the capacity to actively retaliate against the father’s efforts at dominance. During the Depression, it is stated that ‘...The grass looked much the same....the farm had lost its value.....’ The description of the farm as ‘look[ing] much the same as ...
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However, it becomes plainly evident that the father’s relationship with the land is non-viable, and fails to establish any form of meaningful connection between him and the land. It is told that after the Maoris leave, that the father felt ‘that the land itself had heaped some final indignity upon him’. The personification here endows the land with the capacity to actively retaliate against the father’s efforts at dominance. During the Depression, it is stated that ‘...The grass looked much the same....the farm had lost its value.....’ The description of the farm as ‘look[ing] much the same as it had always looked’ highlights how while the farm remains unchanged, there has been a shift in the father’s perception of the farm. His relationship with the farm is grounded in its monetary value and his sense of ownership but however the devaluation of the farm renders this worthless. Therefore, he finds that he is no longer able to exert dominance over the farm, because the sense of control and ownership that he had when the farm was successful and turned out as he wanted is now undermined. In contrast, Jim, who is appreciative of the farm and its background on a deeper level, is able to retain his connection to it. At the end of the story, the metaphor of ‘...the long distance runner....to victory’, and ‘.... robbed of something which was rightfully mine’ is a parallel of the father’s own pursuit of ‘..winning order from the wilderness’, and ownership of the land. Shadbolt highlights how it is because Jim avoids the conflict that the father and the narrator devoted themselves to, and instead gain a wholesome appreciation for the land’s innate characteristics, that he is able to maintain a meaningful connection. Moreover, present in the story is a hint of the greater struggle between the temporary against the permanent. The father and the narrator have attempted to subvert nature; in the process they are invariably overcome and defeated by it.
In Billennium, we are also offered an antagonistic relationship between the characters, and their locale. While in The People Before, the father is struggling against the natural landscape, in Billennium the the characters finds themselves not only in conflict with the setting, but also with the greater social mechanism. The city and its inhabitants are in a constant state of conflict with each other, with people constantly struggling for space. Ballard impresses upon the reader this struggle with ‘the ceaseless press of people jostling past.....endless clamour of voice of shuffling feet.’ The auditory and visual imagery created here are all suggestive of strongly restricted movement and overwhelming numbers; thus from the start Ballard highlights for the readers this antagonistic relationship, wherein the people are striving to overcome the absence of space. Furthermore, Ballard highlights that this is a mutual relationship. ‘..the bruising crush of the public reading room’ invokes imagery of physical injury, as if the room has inflicted some tangible harm.
The central conflict within Billennium is Ward’s brief resistance against the dystopian setting. The empty room serves as an instrument of rebellion against both the constraints imposed upon them by their surrounds and the greater social mechanism, facilitating Ward’s defiance against the system. The room is described as being ‘..empty except for the dust silted up..’. The language utilised here creates the impression of a great abundance of space; as opposed to absence of space outside the room. Furthermore, Ward’s relationship with the room is more clearly defined by ‘wandering silently....stretching their arms out to feel its unconfined emptiness, grasping at the sensation of absolute spatial freedom’. Here ‘wandering’ is juxtaposed with the the vocabulary of ‘jostling’ and ‘shuffling’, highlighting the room’s vacuosity. Similarly, ‘stretching’ and ‘grasping’ are utilised here in order to create visual imagery of empty space. Therefore, Ward’s relationship with the room is directly set up in opposition to his relationship with the city.
However, this defiance is short-lived, and gradually falls into place as another insignificant part of an infinite cycle. As more people arrive, the room becomes more and more reflective of the outside world. ‘...stretched back on his narrow bed, trying not to bang his head on his shelving’ is indicative of how the situation has returned to the status quo; again the language here suggests extremely restricted movement, with no sense of empty space The room has become exactly like the rest of the city, and Ward has been overcome by the greater social mechanism.
In both Billennium and The People Before, the protagonists are locked in a struggle with their surroundings, and both have fleeting moments of apparent triumph. However, they are inevitably defeated by it, as its permanence becomes apparent. Perhaps both Ballard and Shadbolt, through their exploration of our relationships with our locale, are remarking upon the existence of these fundamental and primal forces; those that cannot be undermined but yet are constantly confronted and challenged by the us, the transient.
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