Examination Day

In “Examination Day,” a key method the Government uses to exercise its authority is through information control and develops the theme of Intelligence as a Liability in Authoritarian Regimes. This motif is used throughout the narrative to show how the Government accomplishes its goal of ensuring that its citizens remain ignorant. It is suggested that the only permissible media are those approved by the Government. Mr. Jordan does not read an independent newspaper, only a “Government newspaper,” meaning that the Government decides what news people learn. Dickie, meanwhile, does not have proper books that would be appropriate for a boy his age, such as adventure novels or scientific primers. Instead, he has only comic books full of “colorful squares of fast-paced action” (Paragraph 27). These are not books meant to educate him, but only to entertain him. 

The effects of this information control can be seen in a telling exchange between Dickie and his father. Dickie asks his father how far the Sun is from the Earth, and his father replies “five thousand miles” (Paragraph 16). The correct answer is approximately 93 million miles. His father has been kept ignorant of this and other scientific facts by the Government and he passes this ignorance to his child, demonstrating how Government information control is reinforced within the family unit.