Plot
Dickie Jordan is an intelligent and curious youth in a dystopic future. It is Dickie's twelfth birthday, which means he is required by law to report to a government testing facility for a mandatory IQ test. As Dickie gleefully tells his parents how he was told by an older friend that the test is easy and that he's sure he will pass it, his parents react stressfully and avoid his questions. The Jordans give Dickie a present, two years earlier than he thought he'd be able to get it, and then they bring him to the facility and go back home to wait anxiously for the test results.
When Dickie arrives at the testing facility, he is given a medicine which the examiner says will ensure he tells the truth. He is then given a series of tests, and appears to be doing very well.
After his parents anxiously await the test results at home for hours, they are contacted by the government. Dickie's test results are in. Sadly, he was judged as being too intelligent, exceeding the legal limit; the parents burst into tears as the government examiners ask the Jordans how they would like their son's remains to be handled.
Read more about this topic: Examination Day
Famous quotes containing the word plot:
“We have defined a story as a narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence. A plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality. “The king died and then the queen died” is a story. “The king died, and then the queen died of grief” is a plot. The time sequence is preserved, but the sense of causality overshadows it.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)
“The plot was most interesting. It belonged to no particular age, people, or country, and was perhaps the more delightful on that account, as nobody’s previous information could afford the remotest glimmering of what would ever come of it.”
—Charles Dickens (1812–1870)
“Trade and the streets ensnare us,
Our bodies are weak and worn;
We plot and corrupt each other,
And we despoil the unborn.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)