Irony in Chronopolis by JG BallardJ. G. Ballard gives us a good idea of ​​the irony of "Chronopolis" from the beginning - the real 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 the central point of the story around which the plot revolves. The central point of the story is a world without time, without which the story would make no sense - none of this would have happened, and it would be exactly like our world. The sense of time we are given at the beginning of the story is ironic, because it seems like 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 with his knowledge of time and organizes the day's events for Brocken (the block sergeant); “Brocken... counted on Newman to schedule the day for him.” The fact that Newman is "serving time" for being obsessed with time is the first example of irony through language given to us in Chronopolis. This again draws our attention to the irony of Ballard's view of time and inspires the reader to delve deeper into the text, thereby discovering more of the way time functions in the world of Chronopolis. At this point we don't learn more about time. 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 arranged in chronological order, but alternates between different points in time. This draws our attention to how time works in “Chronopolis.” Because they don't have time, their world is confused and their thoughts 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 how he discovered and became interested in time. Next, Stacey (Newman's English teacher) explains why time is against the law: "You can time [someone], know exactly how long it takes them to do something... you can then force him to do it more quickly"..