Survival of the Fittest Think of a video game where you are placed into an abandoned city and your goal is to defeat many people around you, and make it back to headquarters before everyone else. That is what Cia Vale has to do in The Testing by Joelle Charbonneau, except it isn’t a video game, it’s real life and it is a nightmare. Main characters in The Testing include the protagonist Cia Vale, her romantic interest Tomas Endress, her mentor Michal Gallen, some of the competitors Ryme Reynolds, Will, Roman Fry, the strange man at the fence, Cia’s mother and father, her brother Zeen Vale, and lastly, the testing administrator Dr. Jedidiah Barnes. Where Cia lives in Five Lakes Colony, after graduating school a select advanced group are chosen …show more content…
The United Commonwealth used to be the United States, but after the Seven Stages of War, the country has transformed into an apocalyptic nuclear wasteland. The country attempted to go under reconstruction, but there are new leaders and they believe that ruling the citizens with an iron fist is the only way to be sure that war will never occur again. Nonetheless, with the strict Testing requirements and consequences for failure, this is seen as an effect of the war as extremely negative. “During the past week, I’ve thought a lot about that question. Perhaps because the closer we are to the end of the test, the closer we are to becoming the next leaders of our generation. Many of my fellow candidates had demonstrated their belief that the end justifies the means. I have a hard time understand that, but one thing is certain. The past cannot be changed.” (Charbonneau, 255) This quote can be related to the effects of war, because Cia is realizing that to be a leader, you must learn to deal with your past in order to survive the future. The effects of war are what has shaped their society today, so anyone who wants to be a leader has to accept what happened and how things are now in order to be successful in leading their