Make Room! Make Room!
Encyclopedia
Make Room! Make Room! is a 1966 science fiction
novel written by Harry Harrison
exploring the consequences of unchecked population growth on society. The novel was the basis of the 1973 science fiction
movie Soylent Green
, although the movie changed much of the plot and theme, and introduced cannibalism
as a solution to feeding people. The novel was originally serialized in Impulse
magazine.
Set in then-future
August 1999, the novel explores trends in the proportion of world resources used by the United States
and other countries compared to population growth, depicting a world where the global population
is seven billion, subject to overcrowding, resource
shortages and a crumbling infrastructure. The plot jumps from character to character, recounting the lives of people in various walks of life in New York City
(population around 35 million).
set and a refrigerator
.
When Andy queues for their continually reducing water ration he witnesses a public speech by the "Eldsters", people 65 years and older forcibly retired from work. This demonstration produces pandemonium when it becomes known that a nearby food shop has a sale on "soylent" (soya
and lentil
) steaks. Andy follows the crowd to find that the shop is under attack, with the front glass smashed as he arrives and people looting
the contents.
The narrative switches to follow Billy Chung, a desperately poor Taiwan
ese (originally identified in the novel as Chinese) boy and one of the looters, who grabs a box of soylent steaks and narrowly escapes Andy's clutches, and who, after eating several of the steaks, sells the rest for enough money to fund himself as a messenger-boy. His first delivery takes him into a semi-fortified apartment block, complete with the rare luxuries of air conditioning
and running water for showers, wherein he delivers his message to a rich racketeer named "Big Mike". While Mike is reading the message, Billy catches sight of Shirl, Mike's concubine. Billy leaves the apartment after Mike acknowledges the message. The narrative shifts to Shirl and thereafter (with the exception of a few brief departures) follows either Andy, Billy, or Shirl throughout.
Shirl takes a trishaw taxi to market while her bodyguard Tab runs alongside, and there buys "staples" including 'weed-crackers' and petroleum
-based margarine before going to a meat smuggler to buy beef steak for Mike. On return to Mike's apartment, they find he has been murdered, and it is revealed that Billy had hidden in the building's basement
, and then broken into what he thought an empty apartment, partly for theft
and partly for fascination with Shirl, killed Mike when surprised by him, and fled, leaving the nearly-stolen goods behind.
Andy is called to investigate the murder and correctly reconstructs its cause. He expects the case to be abandoned, but the criminal syndicate operating via corrupt official Judge Santini thinks the valentine
mark left by Billy may indicate the New Jersey Mafia, and instructs the Justice Department to find the killer.
As the investigation continues, Andy becomes enamored of Shirl, and ensures that Shirl is permitted to stay in the apartment until the end of the month. During this month they live in luxury, eventually consuming Big Mike's food and drink supplies.
As the end of the month approaches and Shirl realises she has nowhere to go, Andy suggests that she come to live with him. After she accepts, they eat and drink the last of the food and alcohol and steal some of Big Mike's bedsheets. After persuading an initially-reluctant Sol, Shirl lives with Andy, but becomes disappointed in the impoverished lifestyle. She befriends a woman who protects her from being robbed of her water supply, and learns about the now-common diseases such as kwashiorkor
and beri beri afflicting the malnourished.
Meanwhile, Andy attempts to investigate Mike's death despite contending with riots, paperwork, and the chief's trying to spread his meager force to its limit, which makes him irritable. This, in combination with his shame of the life he is now giving Shirl, distances him from her. He therefore becomes obsessed by the idea of capturing Billy Chung. Eventually, he finds fingerprint cards revealing Billy's home address among a suburb composed of decommissioned ships. A visit to this address reveals Billy's absence, so Andy leaves stool pigeons to alert the police if and when Billy returns.
Later, Billy returns home, but, after a brief altercation with his mother and older sister, leaves again. After narrowly escaping the alerted police and nearly jumping to his death in a drug-induced haze, he leaves the part of the city to which he is accustomed, eventually breaking into the abandoned Brooklyn Navy Yard
, where he comes to live with Peter, a fatalist hermit eagerly awaiting the new millennium as the end of the world. There, Billy discovers a supply of water in an old tank, which he sells piecemeal for money to support himself and Peter, and also to maintain his newly-acquired drug dependence. Soon they are attacked by a small group of homeless people and forced to leave their location, later to find a new home in a discarded car whose previous owner had frozen to death. Here, Peter's stoic acceptance of events frustrates Billy until the latter decides to return to his family, believing the police will have lost interest in him.
Meanwhile, Sol decides he can no longer remain passive in the face of what he sees as human life's growing crisis, and joins a protest march against the overturning of a legislative bill supporting family planning, in favor of population control
as humanity's hope of survival. At the demonstration, Sol is injured in a riot
and later becomes bedridden, where he catches pneumonia
and eventually dies.
A few days after Sol's funeral
, Andy and Shirl are in conversation when Tab arrives, reluctantly in the employ of a family that has received government permission to take Sol's living quarters as their own, making Shirl and Andy's life more miserable than before.
In the climax
of the story, Andy stumbles upon Billy Chung when he returns to the ships, accidentally shooting and killing the boy in the latter's escape. Andy tells his chief thereof, only to discover that the syndicate has lost interest in the case after its own investigations confirmed the absence of a rival's invasion. The police chief therefore demotes Andy in order to save his own career. On return to his own quarters, Andy finds Shirl gone.
The story ends with Andy on patrol in Times Square
on New Year's Eve
, where he glimpses Shirl among rich party-goers. As the clock strikes midnight, Andy encounters Peter, who is distraught that the world has not ended and asks how life can continue as it is; but gives him no answer. The story concludes with the Times Square screen announcing that "Census says United States had biggest year ever, end-of-the-century, 344 million citizens...".
n I met after the war
, in 1946. He told me, 'Overpopulation is the big problem coming up in the world' (nobody had ever heard of it in those days) and he said 'Want to make a lot of money, Harry? You have to import rubber contraceptives
to India.' I didn't mind making money, but I didn't want to be the rubber king of India!".
and sustainable development
. Overpopulation had recently become a concern; Paul R. Ehrlich
, founder of the Zero Population Growth
movement, wrote the introduction to the paperback edition.
In the book, environmental destruction has rendered people apathetic, leaving them struggling to sustain themselves in any fashion they can find. Almost all mechanized transport has been replaced by human power, much of the farmland has been poisoned by pollution or absorbed in a growing dust bowl
, and the government can barely cope with providing basic food and water rations to a disorderly population crowded into the decaying cities. The loss of mechanized transport is revealed by a number of stark, disturbing images including the "tugtrucks" — large bins on four old tires towed by the human muscle-power of two "truckers" — and "the lots", former parking/impound lots where the destitute live in long-dead cars, and the "now silent subway stations" where still more destitute people are assigned to live by the city welfare department.
In the speculative fiction
tradition of What if?, a convincing alternative world is depicted, not as prediction, but as a vivid communication of what such a future would be like from the common citizen's point of view. Harrison's writing is unusually bleak, departing from his usually humorous approach, but maintains his usual distrust of authority.
The late 1960s and the 1970s produced descriptions of New York City, both fictional and reportage, suggesting that violent crime was rampant and that complete social breakdown, if not imminent, was on the horizon. Make Room! Make Room! was perhaps influenced by this context and can be regarded as an extreme extrapolation of the societal trends perceptible at the time of its writing.
The novel also takes a decidedly feminist tone. Though the main female character, Shirl, conforms to many stereotypical gender roles, author Harrison also has the character freely engage in sex for her pleasure and come and go from her romantic relationships as she pleases, both major topics of the 1960s sexual revolution
and Second-wave feminism
.
In recent editions of the book, a 2008 afterword written by author Harry Harrison
mentions his focus on a lack of sustainable energy
in the dystopian future.
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
novel written by Harry Harrison
Harry Harrison
Harry Harrison is an American science fiction author best known for his character the Stainless Steel Rat and the novel Make Room! Make Room! , the basis for the film Soylent Green...
exploring the consequences of unchecked population growth on society. The novel was the basis of the 1973 science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
movie Soylent Green
Soylent Green
Soylent Green is a 1973 American science fiction film directed by Richard Fleischer. Starring Charlton Heston, the film overlays the police procedural and science fiction genres as it depicts the investigation into the murder of a wealthy businessman in a dystopian future suffering from pollution,...
, although the movie changed much of the plot and theme, and introduced cannibalism
Cannibalism
Cannibalism is the act or practice of humans eating the flesh of other human beings. It is also called anthropophagy...
as a solution to feeding people. The novel was originally serialized in Impulse
Science Fantasy (magazine)
Science Fantasy, which also appeared under the titles Impulse and SF Impulse, was a British fantasy and science fiction magazine, launched in 1950 by Nova Publications as a companion to Nova's New Worlds. Walter Gillings was editor for the first two issues, and was then replaced by John Carnell,...
magazine.
Set in then-future
Future
The future is the indefinite time period after the present. Its arrival is considered inevitable due to the existence of time and the laws of physics. Due to the nature of the reality and the unavoidability of the future, everything that currently exists and will exist is temporary and will come...
August 1999, the novel explores trends in the proportion of world resources used by the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and other countries compared to population growth, depicting a world where the global population
World population
The world population is the total number of living humans on the planet Earth. As of today, it is estimated to be billion by the United States Census Bureau...
is seven billion, subject to overcrowding, resource
Resource
A resource is a source or supply from which benefit is produced, typically of limited availability.Resource may also refer to:* Resource , substances or objects required by a biological organism for normal maintenance, growth, and reproduction...
shortages and a crumbling infrastructure. The plot jumps from character to character, recounting the lives of people in various walks of life in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
(population around 35 million).
Plot summary
Make Room! Make Room! is set in an overpopulated New York City of 1999 (thirty-three years later than the time of writing). Police detective Andy Rusch lives in half a room, sharing it with his "room-mate" Sol, a retired engineer who has adapted a bicycle generator, connected to old car batteries, to power an old televisionTelevision
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
set and a refrigerator
Refrigerator
A refrigerator is a common household appliance that consists of a thermally insulated compartment and a heat pump that transfers heat from the inside of the fridge to its external environment so that the inside of the fridge is cooled to a temperature below the ambient temperature of the room...
.
When Andy queues for their continually reducing water ration he witnesses a public speech by the "Eldsters", people 65 years and older forcibly retired from work. This demonstration produces pandemonium when it becomes known that a nearby food shop has a sale on "soylent" (soya
Soybean
The soybean or soya bean is a species of legume native to East Asia, widely grown for its edible bean which has numerous uses...
and lentil
Lentil
The lentil is an edible pulse. It is a bushy annual plant of the legume family, grown for its lens-shaped seeds...
) steaks. Andy follows the crowd to find that the shop is under attack, with the front glass smashed as he arrives and people looting
Looting
Looting —also referred to as sacking, plundering, despoiling, despoliation, and pillaging—is the indiscriminate taking of goods by force as part of a military or political victory, or during a catastrophe, such as during war, natural disaster, or rioting...
the contents.
The narrative switches to follow Billy Chung, a desperately poor Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
ese (originally identified in the novel as Chinese) boy and one of the looters, who grabs a box of soylent steaks and narrowly escapes Andy's clutches, and who, after eating several of the steaks, sells the rest for enough money to fund himself as a messenger-boy. His first delivery takes him into a semi-fortified apartment block, complete with the rare luxuries of air conditioning
Air conditioning
An air conditioner is a home appliance, system, or mechanism designed to dehumidify and extract heat from an area. The cooling is done using a simple refrigeration cycle...
and running water for showers, wherein he delivers his message to a rich racketeer named "Big Mike". While Mike is reading the message, Billy catches sight of Shirl, Mike's concubine. Billy leaves the apartment after Mike acknowledges the message. The narrative shifts to Shirl and thereafter (with the exception of a few brief departures) follows either Andy, Billy, or Shirl throughout.
Shirl takes a trishaw taxi to market while her bodyguard Tab runs alongside, and there buys "staples" including 'weed-crackers' and petroleum
Petroleum
Petroleum or crude oil is a naturally occurring, flammable liquid consisting of a complex mixture of hydrocarbons of various molecular weights and other liquid organic compounds, that are found in geologic formations beneath the Earth's surface. Petroleum is recovered mostly through oil drilling...
-based margarine before going to a meat smuggler to buy beef steak for Mike. On return to Mike's apartment, they find he has been murdered, and it is revealed that Billy had hidden in the building's basement
Basement
__FORCETOC__A basement is one or more floors of a building that are either completely or partially below the ground floor. Basements are typically used as a utility space for a building where such items as the furnace, water heater, breaker panel or fuse box, car park, and air-conditioning system...
, and then broken into what he thought an empty apartment, partly for theft
Theft
In common usage, theft is the illegal taking of another person's property without that person's permission or consent. The word is also used as an informal shorthand term for some crimes against property, such as burglary, embezzlement, larceny, looting, robbery, shoplifting and fraud...
and partly for fascination with Shirl, killed Mike when surprised by him, and fled, leaving the nearly-stolen goods behind.
Andy is called to investigate the murder and correctly reconstructs its cause. He expects the case to be abandoned, but the criminal syndicate operating via corrupt official Judge Santini thinks the valentine
Valentine
Valentine may refer to:* Valentine's Day, a holiday, or a card or gift given on that day-People:* Valentine , the pseudonym of Archibald Thomas Pechey* Saint Valentine, the name of several martyred saints of ancient Rome* Pope Valentine...
mark left by Billy may indicate the New Jersey Mafia, and instructs the Justice Department to find the killer.
As the investigation continues, Andy becomes enamored of Shirl, and ensures that Shirl is permitted to stay in the apartment until the end of the month. During this month they live in luxury, eventually consuming Big Mike's food and drink supplies.
As the end of the month approaches and Shirl realises she has nowhere to go, Andy suggests that she come to live with him. After she accepts, they eat and drink the last of the food and alcohol and steal some of Big Mike's bedsheets. After persuading an initially-reluctant Sol, Shirl lives with Andy, but becomes disappointed in the impoverished lifestyle. She befriends a woman who protects her from being robbed of her water supply, and learns about the now-common diseases such as kwashiorkor
Kwashiorkor
Kwashiorkor is an acute form of childhood protein-energy malnutrition characterized by edema, irritability, anorexia, ulcerating dermatoses, and an enlarged liver with fatty infiltrates. The presence of edema caused by poor nutrition defines kwashiorkor...
and beri beri afflicting the malnourished.
Meanwhile, Andy attempts to investigate Mike's death despite contending with riots, paperwork, and the chief's trying to spread his meager force to its limit, which makes him irritable. This, in combination with his shame of the life he is now giving Shirl, distances him from her. He therefore becomes obsessed by the idea of capturing Billy Chung. Eventually, he finds fingerprint cards revealing Billy's home address among a suburb composed of decommissioned ships. A visit to this address reveals Billy's absence, so Andy leaves stool pigeons to alert the police if and when Billy returns.
Later, Billy returns home, but, after a brief altercation with his mother and older sister, leaves again. After narrowly escaping the alerted police and nearly jumping to his death in a drug-induced haze, he leaves the part of the city to which he is accustomed, eventually breaking into the abandoned Brooklyn Navy Yard
Brooklyn Navy Yard
The United States Navy Yard, New York–better known as the Brooklyn Navy Yard or the New York Naval Shipyard –was an American shipyard located in Brooklyn, northeast of the Battery on the East River in Wallabout Basin, a semicircular bend of the river across from Corlear's Hook in Manhattan...
, where he comes to live with Peter, a fatalist hermit eagerly awaiting the new millennium as the end of the world. There, Billy discovers a supply of water in an old tank, which he sells piecemeal for money to support himself and Peter, and also to maintain his newly-acquired drug dependence. Soon they are attacked by a small group of homeless people and forced to leave their location, later to find a new home in a discarded car whose previous owner had frozen to death. Here, Peter's stoic acceptance of events frustrates Billy until the latter decides to return to his family, believing the police will have lost interest in him.
Meanwhile, Sol decides he can no longer remain passive in the face of what he sees as human life's growing crisis, and joins a protest march against the overturning of a legislative bill supporting family planning, in favor of population control
Population control
Human population control is the practice of artificially altering the rate of growth of a human population.Historically, human population control has been implemented by limiting the population's birth rate, usually by government mandate, and has been undertaken as a response to factors including...
as humanity's hope of survival. At the demonstration, Sol is injured in a riot
Riot
A riot is a form of civil disorder characterized often by what is thought of as disorganized groups lashing out in a sudden and intense rash of violence against authority, property or people. While individuals may attempt to lead or control a riot, riots are thought to be typically chaotic and...
and later becomes bedridden, where he catches pneumonia
Pneumonia
Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung—especially affecting the microscopic air sacs —associated with fever, chest symptoms, and a lack of air space on a chest X-ray. Pneumonia is typically caused by an infection but there are a number of other causes...
and eventually dies.
A few days after Sol's funeral
Funeral
A funeral is a ceremony for celebrating, sanctifying, or remembering the life of a person who has died. Funerary customs comprise the complex of beliefs and practices used by a culture to remember the dead, from interment itself, to various monuments, prayers, and rituals undertaken in their honor...
, Andy and Shirl are in conversation when Tab arrives, reluctantly in the employ of a family that has received government permission to take Sol's living quarters as their own, making Shirl and Andy's life more miserable than before.
In the climax
Climax
- Common general uses :* Climax * Climax * Climax community* Climax vegetation in an ecosystem* Sexual climax, another term for orgasm- Brand names and titles :* The Climax, a 1944 film...
of the story, Andy stumbles upon Billy Chung when he returns to the ships, accidentally shooting and killing the boy in the latter's escape. Andy tells his chief thereof, only to discover that the syndicate has lost interest in the case after its own investigations confirmed the absence of a rival's invasion. The police chief therefore demotes Andy in order to save his own career. On return to his own quarters, Andy finds Shirl gone.
The story ends with Andy on patrol in Times Square
Times Square
Times Square is a major commercial intersection in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, at the junction of Broadway and Seventh Avenue and stretching from West 42nd to West 47th Streets...
on New Year's Eve
New Year's Eve
New Year's Eve is observed annually on December 31, the final day of any given year in the Gregorian calendar. In modern societies, New Year's Eve is often celebrated at social gatherings, during which participants dance, eat, consume alcoholic beverages, and watch or light fireworks to mark the...
, where he glimpses Shirl among rich party-goers. As the clock strikes midnight, Andy encounters Peter, who is distraught that the world has not ended and asks how life can continue as it is; but gives him no answer. The story concludes with the Times Square screen announcing that "Census says United States had biggest year ever, end-of-the-century, 344 million citizens...".
Concept and creation
Author Harry Harrison claimed that "The idea came from an IndiaIndia
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
n I met after the war
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, in 1946. He told me, 'Overpopulation is the big problem coming up in the world' (nobody had ever heard of it in those days) and he said 'Want to make a lot of money, Harry? You have to import rubber contraceptives
Condom
A condom is a barrier device most commonly used during sexual intercourse to reduce the probability of pregnancy and spreading sexually transmitted diseases . It is put on a man's erect penis and physically blocks ejaculated semen from entering the body of a sexual partner...
to India.' I didn't mind making money, but I didn't want to be the rubber king of India!".
Major themes
Social commentary is the novel's underlying theme, with author Harry Harrison using Sol in promoting the importance of birth controlBirth control
Birth control is an umbrella term for several techniques and methods used to prevent fertilization or to interrupt pregnancy at various stages. Birth control techniques and methods include contraception , contragestion and abortion...
and sustainable development
Sustainable development
Sustainable development is a pattern of resource use, that aims to meet human needs while preserving the environment so that these needs can be met not only in the present, but also for generations to come...
. Overpopulation had recently become a concern; Paul R. Ehrlich
Paul R. Ehrlich
Paul Ralph Ehrlich is an American biologist and educator who is the Bing Professor of Population Studies in the department of Biological Sciences at Stanford University and president of Stanford's Center for Conservation Biology. By training he is an entomologist specializing in Lepidoptera , but...
, founder of the Zero Population Growth
Population Connection
Population Connection is an organization in the United States, formerly known as Zero Population Growth. They adopted their current name in 2002.Zero Population Growth was originally founded in 1968 by Paul R...
movement, wrote the introduction to the paperback edition.
In the book, environmental destruction has rendered people apathetic, leaving them struggling to sustain themselves in any fashion they can find. Almost all mechanized transport has been replaced by human power, much of the farmland has been poisoned by pollution or absorbed in a growing dust bowl
Dust Bowl
The Dust Bowl, or the Dirty Thirties, was a period of severe dust storms causing major ecological and agricultural damage to American and Canadian prairie lands from 1930 to 1936...
, and the government can barely cope with providing basic food and water rations to a disorderly population crowded into the decaying cities. The loss of mechanized transport is revealed by a number of stark, disturbing images including the "tugtrucks" — large bins on four old tires towed by the human muscle-power of two "truckers" — and "the lots", former parking/impound lots where the destitute live in long-dead cars, and the "now silent subway stations" where still more destitute people are assigned to live by the city welfare department.
In the speculative fiction
Speculative fiction
Speculative fiction is an umbrella term encompassing the more fantastical fiction genres, specifically science fiction, fantasy, horror, supernatural fiction, superhero fiction, utopian and dystopian fiction, apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, and alternate history in literature as well as...
tradition of What if?, a convincing alternative world is depicted, not as prediction, but as a vivid communication of what such a future would be like from the common citizen's point of view. Harrison's writing is unusually bleak, departing from his usually humorous approach, but maintains his usual distrust of authority.
The late 1960s and the 1970s produced descriptions of New York City, both fictional and reportage, suggesting that violent crime was rampant and that complete social breakdown, if not imminent, was on the horizon. Make Room! Make Room! was perhaps influenced by this context and can be regarded as an extreme extrapolation of the societal trends perceptible at the time of its writing.
The novel also takes a decidedly feminist tone. Though the main female character, Shirl, conforms to many stereotypical gender roles, author Harrison also has the character freely engage in sex for her pleasure and come and go from her romantic relationships as she pleases, both major topics of the 1960s sexual revolution
Sexual revolution
The sexual revolution was a social movement that challenged traditional codes of behavior related to sexuality and interpersonal relationships throughout the Western world from the 1960s into the 1980s...
and Second-wave feminism
Second-wave feminism
The Feminist Movement, or the Women's Liberation Movement in the United States refers to a period of feminist activity which began during the early 1960s and lasted through the early 1990s....
.
In recent editions of the book, a 2008 afterword written by author Harry Harrison
Harry Harrison
Harry Harrison is an American science fiction author best known for his character the Stainless Steel Rat and the novel Make Room! Make Room! , the basis for the film Soylent Green...
mentions his focus on a lack of sustainable energy
Sustainable energy
Sustainable energy is the provision of energy that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs. Sustainable energy sources include all renewable energy sources, such as hydroelectricity, solar energy, wind energy, wave power, geothermal...
in the dystopian future.
Short Story
Several years after writing the novel, Harrison created the short story "Roommates" (1971), largely by joining excerpts from the novel. Harrison describes the impetus and creation of the short story in his introduction for it in The Best of Harry Harrison. He recounts how he was asked for an excerpt for reprinting, but that he did not think any simple excerpt stood alone. So he took various scenes from the "roommates" plot strand and combined them into the short story.External links
- Make Room! Make Room!
- Millennial Reviews: XXXIV: Make Room! Make Room! - Harry Harrison - criticises inaccuracy of predictions