Examination Day

“Examination Day” is a classic American speculative science fiction short story. Set in an altered reality, it explores American anxieties in the 1950s around communist totalitarianism and suburban conformity through the perspective of a family struggling with their son’s entrance into adulthood. With its spare language and final plot twist, the short story drives home the moral cost of a society that doesn’t question its government’s rules and accepts conformity, no matter how it’s achieved.

“Examination Day” is also dystopian science fiction, highlighting the theme of Innocence as a Lens for Dystopian Horror. Dystopian literature is set in future or near-future societies, where life and social structures are in calamitous decline. Slesar uses this setting to explore what it would be like if contemporary social and political systems became authoritarian. In the 1950s, when the story was published, Americans were concerned about the perceived looming threat of the Stalinist communist dictatorship in the USSR. They worried that if the US lost the Cold War, a similar totalitarian regime would be instituted at home. The Soviet Union was seen as a place where the government forced everyone to conform. Thus, in the story, Slesar depicts a world in which a totalitarian government takes extreme measures to enforce conformity through executing those who are too intelligent. This system echoes then-defunct Nazi Germany as much as it does Stalinist Russia. At the exam station, Dickie is given a number, “600-115,” which recalls Hitler’s assignment of numbers to prisoners in concentration camps. 

The dominant point-of-view character in the story is innocent young Dickie who does not understand the peril of this regime. The knowledge gap creates a tragic disconnect between himself and his parents. His parents, as adults, recognize that Dickie’s 12th birthday may well be his last. To try to save him, his father attempts to squash Dickie’s natural curiosity and intelligence. However, the boy cannot help but be himself, due to the use of a truth serum administered during the exam. When his intelligence, and presumably his individuality, are recognized by the Government, it results in his tragic death in a society rewards the ability to conform. 

The narrative structure of “Examination Day” is typical of 20th-century American short stories, in that it builds to a plot twist in the final paragraphs. The story opens with an exposition which lays out the key elements of the narrative: the characters (the Jordan family), the setting (a near-future America), and the inciting incident (the impending Government exam). During the rising action sequence, Dickie’s natural intelligence and his parents’ growing concerns about his fate are developed. He is then taken to the exam facility by his father. The rising action underscores the theme of Intelligence as a Liability in Authoritarian Regimes. The narrative ends at the climax, when Dickie’s fate is revealed: He is killed due to his high IQ, and his parents are wracked with grief. The practice of ending a short story on a shocking or surprising final twist can be seen in many other classic American short stories like “The Last Leaf” by O. Henry, “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin, and “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson.

The nature of the totalitarian Government under which the Jordan family live is not stated outright in the narrative but is hinted at through the use of literary devices, including setting, tone, and diction. The Government regime is revealed to be a bureaucracy, which seeks to keep people ignorant so as to prevent uprising or revolt. It directly controls information, and its looming power restrains people’s relationships to one another within the family. 

There are two primary settings in the story: the Jordans’ home and the Government building. The dynamics of the Jordan family suggest a typical 1950s nuclear family: matter-of-fact father, emotional mother, and obedient child. However, the description of the “little apartment” hints at an alternative science fiction universe. Dickie notes that his birthday cake is being prepared “in the automatic stove” of “the tiny wall-kitchen” (Paragraph 3), indicating that the technology of the world is speculative. The Government’s presence is minimal in the family home, but it is alluded to through reference to Mr. Jordan’s “Government newspaper,” indicating that the Government controls the media. In the second half of the story, Dickie and Mr. Jordan go to the Government building. This is an imposing building with “marble floors [in a] great pillared lobby” where Government workers sit behind antiseptic “polished desk[s] (Paragraph 28). This architecture illustrates the power and might that the Government has at its disposal. 

In the opening sentence of “Examination Day,” it is noted that “the Jordans never spoke of the exam” (Paragraph 1). This establishes that in the story’s world, people, even family members, are encouraged not to speak of certain things for their own safety and comfort. The reigning silence and resulting lack of intimacy is reflected not only in the Jordans’ relationship to one another but in the language of the narrative itself, which is as cold and impersonal as the Government’s own technocratic diction. 

The narrative avoids florid language and long descriptions. Instead of stating, for example, that Mrs. Jordan has been crying, Dickie simply observes “the moistness of his mother’s eyes” (Paragraph 3). The birthday celebration is described in spare, muted language and passive voice: “the birthday cake was brought forth, and the ceremonies concluded” (Paragraph 13). There is no discussion of Dickie’s joy or happiness at the prospect of celebrating his birthday; it is treated like a doctor’s appointment or daily chore. Even the final moment of tragedy, when Dickie’s parents learn of his fate, is described in relatively cold and impersonal language. In that scene, Mrs. Jordan is not referred to as a grieving mother but simply as “the woman.” With the death of her son, she is also stripped of her familial identity.  

This ironic coldness is emphasized in the final paragraph of “Examination Day.” While Mr. and Mrs. Jordan grieve, the official voice “drone[s] on” to describe their options for funeral arrangements. It implies that the Government worker is reading from a bureaucratic script. For them, this is just another day at the office while for the Jordans it is a day of mourning. 

The final detail provided, that a “Government burial is ten dollars” (Paragraph 56), only adds insult to injury. In the 1950s, $10 was not a lot of money, implying the low cost the Government ascribes to the lives of children like Dickie. This moment is darkly ironic, as the mechanical language contrasts sharply with the deeply human emotional outburst of Mrs. Jordan in the preceding paragraph. The parents’ devastation, and the Government’s indifference to it, illustrate The Moral Cost of Enforced Conformity.