High-Rise by J. G. Ballard
"High-Rise" is a novel that explores the social breakdown within a newly constructed forty-story apartment building, where the occupants are divided into distinct class strata. The story begins with the completion of the building, which initially boasts modern amenities, including elevators, restaurants, and recreational facilities. However, as tensions rise among the residents, violence erupts, fueled by class resentment and territorial disputes. The lower floors, occupied by working-class tenants, clash with the upper-class residents, leading to brutal acts of aggression and a gradual decline of the building's once-pristine environment.
Central to the narrative is Dr. Robert Laing, who seeks refuge in the high-rise following his divorce. While he attempts to maintain a passive existence within his apartment, the surrounding chaos escalates dramatically. The conflict is ignited by trivial grievances, such as disputes over elevator access, which spiral into a violent struggle for dominance among the residents. The story highlights themes of isolation, power dynamics, and moral decay as the inhabitants descend into barbarism. The climax of the novel revolves around a pivotal confrontation between Laing, the architect Anthony Royal, and the aggressive resident Richard Wilder, culminating in a dramatic and violent resolution. Overall, "High-Rise" serves as a chilling commentary on societal fragmentation and the primal instincts that emerge in the face of collapse.
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Subject Terms
High-Rise
First published: 1975
Type of work: Novel
Type of plot: Science fiction—dystopia
Time of work: The late twentieth century
Locale: A high-rise apartment building in London
The Plot
High-Rise begins as the last of the one thousand apartment units in a new forty-story high-rise building is filled. Parties are held every night in the fully occupied building. The first of many violent images in the book is a wine bottle falling from an upper balcony to a lower one, then shattering. Soon the building splits into three groups: the lower class, occupying the bottom ten floors, the middle class, on floors eleven through thirty-five, and the upper class, on the top five floors. The best unit of the top floor is reserved for Anthony Royal, the buildings architect. The people of the building become increasingly more vicious and destructive, tearing apart everything in the building and vandalizing it as they terrorize, violate, and kill one another.
Dr. Robert Laing moved into the high-rise to live in anonymity after his divorce. Throughout the book, he mostly manages to stay barricaded in his room, venturing out only occasionally to reflect on the destruction and the events outside his raid-proof door. He proves himself to be one of the strongest of the people in the building, exhibiting self-reliance and passivity. He personally does not engage in brutality. Laing appears in the beginning and ending chapters, holding the book together, but essentially slips out of the middle chapters, in which the other, more aggressive people are involved in their barbaric rites, rituals, and extreme acts of brutality.
The increasing violence is as interesting as any of the people involved. Violence begins because the people of the bottom floors believe that the people of the top floors are letting their dogs urinate in elevators that serve the bottom floors. The people of the top floors are supposed to take the high-speed elevators to their homes and never be on the other elevators.
Richard Wilder, inhabitant of a second-floor apartment, kills a dog. Soon thereafter, a neighbor of Wilder who regularly dined in the thirty-fifth story restaurant is found at the bottom of the building, on the floor of an elevator. He is barely conscious, with a severely bruised face and tattered clothes. The message is clear: The higher floors are off limits to the people of the lower floors. The war continues, but with little use of strategy. Clans form and dissipate, sexual abuse of women is rampant, and finally women learn to stay inside their enclaves or are kept by strong men who protect them.
The dilapidation of the building forms one element of the plot. The building begins as a state of the art, technological miracle. It has twenty elevators, a shopping mall, a grocery and restaurants, swimming pools, a bank, and a junior school. As its inhabitants become more degenerate, it naturally loses electricity and waste disposal systems. Soon it is little better as a living space than would be a cliff face pocked with caves.
As the battle for control of the building takes hold, Wilder realizes that he must reach the top floor in order to rule this world. He leads gangs and raiding parties on the lower floors for several chapters and finally ventures (with a hunting dog) up to the fortieth floor, where Royal is waiting, presiding over the balcony and his group of women there. Wilder shoots Royal with a pistol, firing the only gunshot in the entire book. It is indicative of the mood set in the book that all combat is hand to hand until this final blow.