High-Rise

For each character the high-rise is a theater for working out their psychological hang-ups. What conflict does Laing resolve over the course of the novel? How does the structure of the building guide him toward this resolution?

Analyze the character arcs of two to three women in the high-rise. How do their attitudes toward the disintegration of the high-rise change throughout its three distinct phases?

What role does television play in the disintegration of the high-rise? How does Ballard use televisual metaphor and imagery?

What literary devices does J. G. Ballard use to describe the high-rise itself? Analyze his use of two devices in showing the psychogeographical influence the building has on the residents.

Despite the social homogeneity of the tenants, they become increasingly stratified by floor number. What role does the building play in this stratification? Is it expressly designed to segregate them, or are the residents projecting their own hierarchies onto it?

The flock of gulls figures prominently in Royal’s narrative. Track the appearances of the gulls, analyzing the context in which they appear. What do the birds symbolize?

Despite Adrian Talbot’s prediction that the building isn’t moving toward a “happy primitivism,” Laing ends the novel happy—or does he? What does happiness mean in a struggle of life and death?

High-Rise centers on three male characters, providing little mental insight into the female ones. What might the novel have gained or lost if Ballard had focused more intently on the female characters? Specifically, analyze how the subtlety of the allusions to this Matriarchal Mutiny makes the reader read between the lines.