Irony in Ballards Chronopolis :: Ballard Chronopolis Essays

Irony in J. G. Ballard's Chronopolis J. G. Ballard gives us a good idea of the irony in 'Chronopolis' from the very beginning - the actual name 'Chronopolis' - city of time - is an ironic name for a city that has no time Throughout the story Ballard's view of time acts as a focus to the story, around which the plot revolves. The central point of the story is a world without time, without which the story would have no point - none of it would have happened, and it would be just like our world. The impression of time we are given at the beginning of the story is an ironic one, because it seems that time is important, but not really understood; we are told that Newman is in prison for understanding time - yet while he is in prison he controls the situation because of his knowledge of time, and organises the events of the day for Brocken (the block sergeant); 'Brocken... relied on Newman to programme the day for him'. The fact that Newman is 'serving time' for being obsessed with time is the first instance of irony through language that we are given in Chronopolis. This again brings our attention to the irony of Ballard's view of time, and provokes the reader to look more deeply into the text, thus discovering more about the way time works in the world of Chronopolis. At this point we do not learn any more about what happens to Newman, but instead the story has a flashback to when he was a child, and became interested in time. In this way the story is anachronistic - it is not in chronological order, and instead it switches between different points in time. This brings our attention to the way time works in 'Chronopolis'. Due to the fact that they have no time, their world is muddled up, and thinks have no real order - and this is reflected in the way Ballard writes the story. We are then told the story of Newman's childhood, and the way he slowly discovers time and gains an interest in it. Next we are told by Stacey (Newman's English teacher) why time is against the law: 'You can time [someone], know exactly how long it takes him to do something... then you can make him do it faster.